From California to Peoria in Under Four Hours
by NotARedhead
Summary: Someone from Tony's past shows up unexpectedly. Leading to memories, arguments, faceoffs, stories, pasta and a new case. And Gibbs just might be interested. Contains some language and a disturbing image or two. Final chapter posted, plus Epilogue.
1. Prologue

_Standard Disclaimer: The only thing I own are the ideas and the original character. All the rest belongs to our pals at NCIS, CBS, Bellisario, etc. _

**From California to Peoria in Under Four Hours**

PROLOGUE

"He's not, really, you know," DiNozzo said quietly. It had been a long, annoying case, made more so by the team having to deal with a demanding father who had used his lawyers and business connections to try and buffer the news about his Navy son's arrest for domestic violence that led to murder. Something that had obviously run in the man's family.

"Who's not, what, Tony?" asked Gibbs, as Ziva and McGee continued to organize files and close out the case, while at the same time doing their best to eavesdrop.

"My father … he's not as bad as everyone thinks he is."

Gibbs stopped what he was doing, and regarded Tony with a mixture of interest and concern. DiNozzo wasn't exactly famous for providing more information about his father than an occasional one-liner or single-sentence revelation. But there was no way of knowing what was rolling around in Tony's head.

"No one is making judgments or comparisons, Tony," offered Gibbs, carefully. "But, to be fair, you weren't really complimentary about your old man during this case."

Tony nodded. "Yeah … I know. And believe me, there were plenty of parallels to draw. But … well … I just didn't want people to think … didn't want to give the impression … I mean, he's not a totally horrible guy. It's not like the guy pushed me up against walls or tossed me off rooftops or anything."

Gibbs waited.

"I was … you know … a … a 'handful', as they say."

"You think?" Gibbs said, with a deadpan smile. Tony looked up and returned the smirk.

"At any rate …," Tony was getting a little uncomfortable now, as he realized the whole team was listening. "I just wanted to clear that up."

Everyone looked at Tony, then each other, not sure where to go next.

"Ziva! McGee!" bellowed Gibbs. "How long does it take to put a case to bed? I'd like to get out of here at some point today." Tony shot Gibbs a look of thanks, for getting him out of the hole he'd talked himself into. "DiNozzo, take the last of the evidence down to Abby, and then everyone – go home. It's Saturday afternoon, and I don't want to see anyone back here until Monday morning."

Two hours later, Tony walked into his apartment, kicked off his shoes, served himself an obscene amount of peach cobbler from a dish provided by a grateful neighbor who had insisted on baking for him after he reattached a dryer hose, and plopped down on the couch to watch whatever was on the Sundance Channel. It wasn't until then that he noticed the duffel bag in the corner.

"Some detective YOU are," offered an amused voice from the hall.

It took Tony exactly six seconds to jump from the couch, cross the room, slide into the hallway, and pull the perpetrator into a fierce hug.

"I cannot BELIEVE you didn't tell me you were coming!" he said, as he literally took his guest's breath away.

"If I had told you," she said, gasping for air, "it wouldn't have been a surprise." She pushed away from him a bit, smiled, and glanced down to the plate on the coffee table. "Please tell me that you want more for dinner than just that, because I'm starving."

Tony returned the cobbler to the kitchen, grabbed his keys, slid his shoes back on, and looked back over his shoulder with a grin.

"You comin'?"

She grabbed a jacket and followed him out the door.

"I cannot BELIEVE you didn't even call!" his mock-hurt voice echoed as the door closed behind them.

"Give it up, Tony."


	2. Chapter 1

"I am SO happy to see you," Tony said again, as he parked the car at Gino's.

"Yeah … I think I got that the first 50 times you said it," teased the woman in the passenger seat. "And I think you might have cracked a rib with that tackle. I mean … hug."

Tony walked around the car and chivalrously opened her door. "Wouldn't be the first time …"

They walked into the small pizza joint hand-in-hand, and once inside, Tony pulled back and maneuvered his companion into a perfect twirl.

"Gino," Tony said, as he took a quick bow and acknowledged his dancing partner, "I would like you to meet Operations Specialist Jessica Kennedy, the best operations specialist in the entire United States Armed Forces, and my oldest and dearest friend." He presented her to the patrons of the restaurant with an over-dramatic flourish and a big "ta da."

"Call me Jess, please," she said, rolling her eyes and laughing.

The middle-aged pizza maker looked at Jess and tipped an imaginary hat. "Gino," he offered. She curtsied.

"We need food, Gino," said Tony. "The usual, please?" Gino smiled and nodded, indicating a booth near the back of the restaurant. As Tony and Jess sat down, a pitcher of beer appeared on their table. A waitress poured, they clinked glasses, and they drank. Tony sighed.

"God Jess, it really is so good to see you. It's been such a … crappy … week."

"Yeah," she said. "For me too." They looked at each other for a minute, each one waiting for the other to talk. Jess broke the silence.

"I was hoping you wouldn't mind me just showing up unannounced," she began nervously, talking a little too quickly. "I know that I've never really done that before. But I just … I needed to … I mean, I was going to call, but … well, I didn't. Obviously. I was actually almost all the way here before it even occurred to me that you might be busy, or gone, or seeing someone, or …"

"Jess!" Tony cut her off. "You're babbling." He took her hand and kissed her palm, then looked at her and smiled. "Any time; anywhere; for however long. Capice?"

She returned the kiss in his palm. "Copy that."

Two hours later – after a large pizza, a pitcher of beer, a plateful of cannoli, and two very strong cappuccinos – Tony finally called for the check. They spent about 45 seconds fighting over who would pay before Gino took the check, tore it in half, and declared that such a reunion of old friends warranted a free meal. Tony and Jess left an insanely large tip, and Jess leaned over the counter to kiss Gino on the cheek. Then, with another twirl and a bow, they were out the door, the applause of the rest of the restaurant following them home.

"Great choice," Jess said, as she plopped down on the couch back in Tony's apartment. "I haven't had a pizza that good since … well … I can't remember when I've had a pizza that good. Pizza delivery in Barrow is pretty spotty."

"I can't believe how many times you've moved since 9/11," Tony said, as he chose a CD and dropped it in the player. "I lost track after Colorado."

"Me too, almost," she said. "It seemed like every two weeks I was somewhere new. But Alaska's not bad. Wide open spaces; Northern Lights; desperate men in search of hearty women."

Tony rolled his eyes and there was a pause as he adjusted the volume on the stereo and turned on a torchiere in the corner.

"So …," he began, tentatively. "What's up?"

There was just the slightest flicker of uncertainty in Jess' expression.

"You show up unannounced – not that I have a problem with that in any way, but it is incredibly unlike you; you've admitted to having a crappy week – something I have seldom heard you admit to out loud before; and you're avoiding serious subjects like the plague." She shot him a look.

"Sorry …," Tony said gently. "Poor choice of words." Jess let out the breath she'd been holding, closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the couch. Tony walked over, sat down and pulled her into a hug. "What's goin' on?"

"Tomorrow, okay?" she said, stretching out her legs and leaning back against Tony's chest. "You go first."

Tony wrapped his arms around her, dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and started telling her about The Case of the Navy Son and the Domineering Father.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

"Wow," said Jess, after Tony had taken her through the case – with a few detours to introduce major players and discuss procedure. "That must have dredged up a fond memory or two, huh?"

"Yeah," Tony replied. "I have to admit that I did take the old man's name in vain a few times. I have to give my father credit, though. He wouldn't have let me get away with murder. He'd have let me rot in jail if I'd done what Scott Porter had done."

"He'd have let you rot in jail for a lot less," Jess said, with just a little bitterness in her voice.

"And speaking of parents who don't deserve their children," Tony segued smoothly, "how are Ma and Pa Kennedy?"

"Still wishing someone else was their child instead of me," Jess said.

"Do you hear from them, ever?"

"A card at Christmas. One letter a year on a day that kind of occasionally falls around what they remember as my birthday. Mostly, I just Google them to keep up."

"Googling 'Robert Kennedy' – that must make for a lot of reading," Tony teased. Then he laughed. "Do you remember how disappointed my father was when he found out that your dad wasn't one of THOSE Kennedys?"

"Ah yes," said Jess, chuckling. "His face fell so fast that I thought it was going to bounce." The comment was followed by a yawn that she half-heartedly tried to hide.

"It's time we went to bed," Tony said, hugging her again, and pushing her off the couch. "It's nearly three." She turned and offered her hand, pulling him up.

Jess walked to the hallway and grabbed her bag. "Where do you want me to sleep?"

Tony looked slightly confused. "Where you always sleep," he said.

"OK," Jess replied. "Just making sure."

She headed to the bathroom while Tony turned off lights, checked the door, set the alarm and clicked off the stereo. Ten minutes later, they were both fast asleep.


	3. Chapter 2

Tony and Jess had been sleeping together since they were kids. First, it was two sleeping bags, zipped together, in the back yard. Then it was the top bunk of the bunk beds at the lake. Sometimes it was in her room. Once – and only once – it was in his canopy bed. But that creeped them both out, so they never did it again. They shared apartments in college, and when they traveled, they'd share a hotel room. Any time they were together, they slept together.

It wasn't about sex. With the exception of one disastrous weekend during Tony's senior year in college – a weekend that happened, was over, and was never spoken of again – they'd never even considered it. They just both liked sleeping together. There was something wonderfully reassuring to know that there was someone there with you. Someone you could trust to protect you from the monsters under the bed or the monsters behind the door or the odd bits of life that wormed their way into your dreams and turned them into nightmares.

When Tony had the plague and was in isolation, Jess hated not being able to be there with him. She'd managed to visit him once, after he'd started getting better … after Kate left and Tony was alone and bored and driving everyone crazy. It was during that week or so when he was well enough to cause trouble, but not well enough to be released. Dr. Pitt hadn't been too keen on yet another visitor, but when he saw how Tony's entire face lit up when he heard her name, he couldn't say no. Not to mention that she'd talked her bosses – and they were pretty high-powered military bosses at the time – into letting her take a detour to Maryland on her way from San Antonio to Colorado. Pitt felt as though that effort alone had earned her entry.

Jess sat with Tony for eleven hours – playing games, making him eat, telling him stories, acting out movies with him, and curling up next to him while he slept. She'd met Kate then, and also Dr. Mallard. She and Ducky traded stories about opera, and the elder doctor promised to take her to the Kennedy Center the next time she was in Washington.

And then she had to leave to take the post in Cheyenne Mountain. Because unfortunately the Air Force didn't care that she'd almost lost him or that she wanted to stay more than she'd ever wanted to be anywhere. There was a war in Iraq, and they needed her at NORAD. Jess called Tony twice a day until he was back home, and then they e-mailed constantly until he was well. She sent flowers for Kate's memorial service, and he called her, exhausted, to tell her Ari was dead. At the time, Tony had said, "I can't sleep; I wish you were here." And Jess would have been, if she could have been.

Tony woke with a start. Something was different … he wasn't alone. He closed his eyes for a second and focused. Jess. Right. Jess was here. He smiled into the dim morning light and rolled from his side onto his back. Jess countered his movements and curled up against him. He wrapped his arm around her and pushed some hair back from her face as she settled on his shoulder. That's how they were when they slept … they were always aware of where the other one was. They never jockeyed for position or fought for the covers. Watching them move around as they slept was like watching ballet – Tony's sophomore roommate had said that once.

The clock by the bed said it was just after 8am, which put Jess' internal clock about six hours earlier, Alaska Time. She was definitely out for a while longer. It was grey and cloudy and raining outside, and Tony was more relaxed than he'd been in a month. There was absolutely no reason to get out of bed. Jess shivered slightly, and Tony pulled her closer, reaching for the comforter to pull over her shoulder. That's when he noticed the scar. He hadn't seen that one before – and they were famous for playing "I have more scars than you do," particularly if they were out at a bar and getting really tired of bad karaoke. They'd both been accident-prone as kids – truly accident-prone, not accident-prone-as-a-euphemism-for-abused. They were stalwart adventurers who would try pretty much anything once. But this scar didn't ring a bell. He'd have to remember to ask her about it when she woke up. And with that, he pulled the comforter up and waited for it to settle. Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep, feeling her breath on his neck and trying to remember the last time he'd consciously slept in.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

Jess woke up slowly, feeling rested and comfortable and safe. In other words, totally different than she'd felt since she'd heard the news last week. Tony was up, but hadn't been up for long, if the residual warmth of the bed next to her was any indication.

She glanced over to the bedside table to see what time it was, but the clock was gone. She was sure there had been a clock there earlier, when she'd woken up at 6:30 am. Tony's phone was gone; so was hers. Her watch was gone. There was absolutely no way for her to know what time it was. Which, of course, was Tony's M.O. He liked to stop time on weekends. You did what you felt like doing without worrying about what time it was or whether you should be doing something more productive.

It was tempting to roll over and just go back to sleep, but Jess didn't like the bed as much without Tony in it, and … well … she really had to pee. She got up, did the bathroom thing, pulled on a pair of green plaid flannel pajama bottoms that in no way matched the light blue polka-dot tank top she had worn to bed, ran a hand through her hair, and wandered out into the living room.

"Hey, sleepyhead," said Tony from the couch, where he was reading the paper and watching the news. "Nice fashion statement. There's coffee."

She looked at the newspaper and then to the news. He also had an issue of TIME magazine open on the couch. "Over-achiever," she teased. He smiled and hopped up to give her a hug.

"How did you sleep?"

"Better than I have in a week," she said, stretching and accepting the mug of coffee he offered. "What time is it?" She realized that there weren't any clocks out here either, and she turned back to the living room to check the TV.

Tony beat her to the remote and clicked off the set. "Who cares what time it is?" he said with an innocent smile. "It's Sunday, it's cruddy outside, there's no reason to go anywhere or do anything. So … who cares?"

He knew it was driving her crazy to not know – he used to do this to her all the time in college. He was particularly sadistic about it during Finals Week. She'd fall asleep studying and wake up to find that all the clocks, watches and other time keepers had been purged from the apartment. He never once let her miss a class or a final, but he did enjoy watching her momentary freak-outs. Usually, she could judge – roughly – by the sun or the shadows outside, but today was grey and rainy. Add to that the effects of the jet lag, and she couldn't even guess.

He was standing there with a silly smile on his face, testing her resolve. So, she sat at the kitchen counter and drank her coffee. It was a battle of wills. Tony sat down, remote in his lap, paper opened, glancing at her over the top of the headline. She smiled at him, reached over to get the sugar bowl, then quickly grabbed the phone from the cradle, dialed "0" and said, "Could you tell me the correct time, please?" It was over before Tony had a chance to react.

Jess hung up the phone and looked at him, sitting there with his hands up in mock surrender. "It's 3:15," she said, incredulously. "In the afternoon."

"And … ?" Tony said.

"Nothing. I … I mean … it's … afternoon. How did that happen?"

"Well," said Tony, pulling his reading glasses down to the end of his nose and adopting his best teacher / lecturer tone, "as the sun moves across the sky each day, the earth goes through a series of time changes …"

She threw a potholder at him and laughed. "Smart ass. You could have woken me up, you know."

"Why?" he said, his face getting a little more serious. "You obviously needed the sleep. And really, I only got up about a half-hour before you. So, apparently I did too." He smiled. "You hungry?"

"That depends … do you have food?"

"Yes, I do," Tony said with a slightly affronted tone. "All five major food groups, in fact." He pulled some fruit out of the fridge and put it on the table, along with a couple of bagels and some peanut butter. Jess reached for a bagel, spread some peanut butter on it, added a layer of banana slices, and took a bite. Tony did the same.

"So …," he began. "It's tomorrow."

"Technically," Jess countered, "it's today."

"Yes ….," Tony continued, in a tone of voice that indicated he was willing to play along if he had to, "but yesterday, when you said you'd tell me tomorrow, you clearly meant today, which was tomorrow yesterday."

She stared at him and smiled, the tiredness in her eyes returning. "Yeah."

"Come on, Jess," Tony said, as he watched her put her bagel down and push the plate away. "I can't help you fix it unless I know what it is. Just tell me. Say it fast, like pulling off a band-aid."

She sighed and looked down at her hands. He waited.

"Trey is out of jail." Then, she looked up.

She had to give him credit. He didn't jump up in shock and surprise, as she had. He didn't throw something or punch the wall. The only indication he gave that he'd even heard her was a clenching of his jaw and a look into her eyes that was equal parts disbelief and anger.

"How is that even possible," he said, in a voice so calm it was eerie.

"He got 18 to 24," Jess said quietly. "It's been 18."

"OK …," Tony began, "but how?"

"Apparently, he was a model prisoner. He was released early for 'good behavior'."

"Bullshit," Tony said. "This is his father. What? The prison has a new library now? A new exercise yard?"

"Actually, it's a medical clinic," Jess said, with a rueful smile. "So … now you know why I'm here."

Tony looked up.

"OK," he said, mentally shifting from 'weekend mode' to 'agent mode'. "There's a restraining order, right?"

"As a condition of parole," she said.

"So … you're good, then."

"When have you ever known Trey to follow the rules?"

"Good point," he nodded. "But still … you're in frickin' Alaska! No way he's going to trek all the way up …." His voice faded out as he saw her face. "He's already found you, hasn't he?"

"Showed up on my front porch last week. Two days after I heard about his release on the news." She sighed. "I called the police, but he was gone before they got there. I didn't see him again, but he was there. Notes on my car … photos in the mailbox … flowers and presents. Nothing even remotely threatening."

Tony bristled.

"To the untrained eye, at least," she said. "The police knew there was a restraining order out on him, but until he showed his face again, they couldn't do anything. I was constantly looking over my shoulder. I couldn't sleep. Every sound made me jump. I had to get out. So, I told my bosses that I had a family thing, and needed emergency leave. I'd never asked them before, so they figured it was serious. They let me go, and I came here."

Jess stood up and started to pace.

"He knows it's the first place I'll go, and I know he'll show up here, but there wasn't anywhere else I felt … I needed to be somewhere safe." She looked at him and hung her head. "I'm sorry," she said, in a whisper.

"Excuse me?" Tony said as he stood and walked over to her. "YOU'RE sorry? What the hell do YOU have to be sorry about?"

"For getting you into this. Again."

"I was into this the second he decided that hurting you would be fun. And I'm not out of this until you're safe and he's back behind bars."

Tony took Jess by the shoulders and forced her to look up at him. "No one gets to you without going through me." She smiled, tentatively. "And I'm a big guy," he said, pulling her into a hug.

"Yeah," she laughed. "You and Schwarzenegger are workout buddies. I know."

She hugged him back and looked around the room. "So … what's the plan?"

"First," he said, "you finish eating something. Then, we play it by ear." He grinned his best DiNozzo grin. "After all … it's still Sunday."

As she went back to the table to get her bagel, Tony's face hardened a little as he watched her. This had the potential to get ugly.


	4. Chapter 3

Tony and Jess passed the rest of the day sitting on his couch, reading the news, napping, watching bad "issue of the week" movies on Lifetime (during which they turned off the sound and provided their own dialogue, ala "Mystery Science Theatre 3000"), and eating mostly junk food, with occasional forays into vegetables. They hadn't seen each other for over a year, so there was a lot to catch up on.

Jess described her team up in Barrow, using words like "likeable" and "committed" and "focused" before finally admitting that, brilliant as they were, they were about the dullest bunch of scientists she'd ever met. She'd tried playing a few jokes on them to lighten the mood, but her attempts at humor were not particularly well received.

"You think I'd have learned by now that jokes don't work unless everyone understands it's a joke," she said, shaking her head.

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "My learning curve is slow on that particular skill too."

Jess went on to say that she suspected her boss' willingness to grant her emergency leave was as much to get her off the base for a while as it was to give her the time off she'd requested.

Tony told Jess about his recent missions with Ziva and then spent another hour or so trying to make her understand that Ziva's put downs were just normal partner banter and the fact that she'd had a dinner party without him wasn't that big of a deal. They argued about it for a while – loudly – with Tony defending himself and, much to his surprise, defending Ziva as well.

"Jess – I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself. And I can certainly hold my own with Ziva."

"I know," she said, with a frustrated sigh. They'd had this argument before – about Kate. "You can, but you never do. You just take it and play the nice guy and move on."

"What do you WANT me to do?" Tony said, with a frustrated sigh of his own. "Take a swing at her? Body slam her to a wall?"

Jess rolled her eyes. "No, tough guy," she said. "I want you to fight back." She smiled, slightly. "Like you do with me."

"Yeah," Tony said, with a small smile of his own. "But I know the outcome with you. I'm not always sure about Ziva."

Jess opened her mouth to say something else, but Tony cut her off.

"It's a GAME Jess," Tony said, in a voice that indicated the discussion was over. "It's just what we do. Let it be."

"Excuse me?" she said, raising her eyebrows and challenging him to continue.

"Let. It. Be." Tony repeated, deliberately.

They stared each other down in angry silence for about 20 seconds, and then simultaneously broke into a really bad rendition of The Beatles' "Let it Be", with both of them trying to sing harmony and neither one of them succeeding. They dissolved into silly laughter and apologized to each other, but neither one of them considered the topic closed.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

After another good night's sleep, they woke up early on Monday morning and lay in bed, watching the shadows disappear as it got lighter out.

"You have to go to work," Jess said, stating the obvious.

"Yeah," he said. He looked at her. "Come in with me. Meet everyone. Say hi to Ducky. I'll snag you a computer and you can check your e-mail or do whatever."

"You just want to keep an eye on me," Jess said.

Tony raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "Is that a problem?"

"Nope. I have no problem with that at all. As long as your boss doesn't mind," she said as she headed to the bathroom. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Take your time," Tony said. "I'll make coffee." And then, under his breath, "Bring coffee and the boss doesn't mind."

By the time they walked into the bullpen, McGee, Ziva and Gibbs were all at their desks. Gibbs looked up and started to say something, but cut himself off when he saw Jess.

"Hey boss, sorry I'm late. I brought coffee …" Tony said, as he set a travel mug in front of Gibbs, and offered one to each Ziva and McGee.

"Thank you …" Gibbs said, a bit taken aback. He stood up and straightened his jacket, then squinted a bit. "Do you want to introduce us, DiNozzo?"

"Boss, McGee, Ziva," Tony began, "this is Jessica Kennedy. She's a friend of mine – an operations specialist out of Barrow – visiting for a bit. I thought I'd bring her in to see the little place we all call home."

Jess reached out to shake Gibbs' hand. "Tony talks about all of you … a lot. It's nice to put faces with names."

"Nice to meet you, Specialist Kennedy," said Gibbs, formally.

"Jess, please," she said with a smile, and then turned to her right. "You must be Tim," she said, shaking McGee's hand. "And, of course, Ziva," Jess said as she stepped over to shake Ziva's hand.

"Shalom," Ziva said.

"Na'im m'ode," Jess replied.

Ziva looked at her with surprise. "You know Hebrew?"

"Just enough to be dangerous," Tony said, shooting a 'behave' look at Jess. "And I mean that in the literal sense."

Gibbs was about to ask Jess a question when Ducky came in.

"Jethro … a moment, if you please …" he began. He stopped when he saw Jess standing near the center of the room.

"Miss Kennedy!" he said, with obvious delight. "How lovely to see you again! Anthony didn't tell me you were coming." He walked over and took her hand in both of his, and then gave her a warm hug.

"That's because Anthony didn't KNOW," Tony said, sending a friendly glare in Jess' direction.

"Give it up, Tony," Jess returned automatically, smiling at Ducky.

"Ducky … it's good to see you," she said.

"I believe I owe you a night at the opera, my dear," Ducky said. Gibbs, McGee and Ziva all looked expectantly at the coroner.

"I met Miss Kennedy during Tony's convalescence at Bethesda after his bout with Y Pestis," Ducky began to explain. "We chatted …"

"At length …" Jess added, to everyone's amusement.

"… about opera," Ducky finished, with a smile and a glance towards Jess. "'Der Rosenkavalier' is playing later this month, if you'll still be here."

Jess looked at Tony, then back at Ducky. "I don't know exactly how long I'm staying. I'll have to let you know."

"Boss …," Tony began. "Is there a computer somewhere that Jess can use? Just to check e-mail and do a couple of quick searches? My laptop is still evidence in that murder investigation."

"Sure," Gibbs said with a small smile. "She can use mine. I'll be in MTAC all morning."

"Thank you," Jess said, sitting down as Gibbs held out his chair for her. "I'll try not to mess it up at all."

"I'm not sure I would notice if you did," Gibbs said, as he took his coffee and headed up the stairs to MTAC. He glanced back towards his desk when he got to the top of the stairs, a move that did not go unnoticed by the rest of the team.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

Four hours later, Gibbs came out of MTAC and headed down the stairs. DiNozzo was standing at Gibbs' desk, looking over Jess' shoulder at whatever she was working on; Ziva and McGee were at their computers, working.

"Find what you needed?" Gibbs said to Jess.

"Yup," she said, instantly saving the screen and popping a disc out of the drive. "Thanks."

She stood up and moved away from his computer, with Tony quickly returning to his desk. Gibbs smiled.

"I didn't mean you had to instantly vacate my work station."

"No problem," said Jess, returning the smile. "I was pretty much at a dead end anyway."

There was a pause as they stood and looked at each other.

"So …," Tony broke in, with barely contained amusement. "What's up in MTAC?" McGee's and Ziva's eyes turned towards Gibbs and Jess.

"They're doing a drill here tonight and tomorrow morning," Gibbs said, just barely hiding his annoyance. "When you leave tonight, power down and pack up anything you don't want someone to see. There will be hazardous substance trainees here tomorrow, going through every inch of this place to see how long it takes to biochemically secure an office environment."

There were groans all around.

"Of course, the upside," Gibbs continued, "is that no one needs to be here tomorrow at 0700. The office will be secure and off-limits until 10am."

"In that case," said Jess, glancing back at Tony, "you are all invited to Tony's house tonight for dinner." Tony looked to the ceiling in a "heaven help us" gesture, a grin on his face. "Ducky, Abby, Palmer, everyone," Jess continued. "Everyone," she said deliberately, indicating to both Gibbs and Ziva that this was mandatory, not voluntary. "Dinner is at 8. Someone, please, bring wine."

"I'll call downstairs and let them know," McGee said, clearly pleased with the invitation. "I'll bring dessert."

Tony looked at Gibbs and Ziva. "Seriously, guys, you will see more different types of pasta in one place at one time than you ever have before in your life. Do not make me eat it by myself."

"I wouldn't miss it," Gibbs said with a smile.

"Excellent," Jess said, smiling in return.

Gibbs then sat down, grabbed a few files, and told everyone to go to lunch.


	5. Chapter 4

By 7:45pm, Tony's kitchen was bursting with food, and the apartment smelled like Napoli – the entire city. There were seven kinds of pasta lined up on the counter – spaghetti, fettuccini Alfredo, carbonara, ziti, and three lasagnas (one traditional; one with no pork, for Ziva; and one vegetarian with whole-wheat noodles, much to Tony's disgust, for Palmer). There was a huge antipasto and multiple loaves of garlic bread. Jess and Tony had been shopping and cooking since mid-afternoon, when Gibbs had let them leave in order to get ready for the party. Gibbs had originally offered to drive Jess home to prepare, but when it became clear that Jess wasn't comfortable leaving without Tony, Gibbs had dismissed him as well.

"I really hope everyone shows up," Tony said, a flash of uncertainty in his expression. In fourth grade, Tony's parents had reluctantly allowed him to host a party, and Jess had helped him plan an amazing jungle-themed adventure. His father had promised to mail the invitations on his way to the airport the week before, but he was pre-occupied with a business deal and forgot. Tony and Jess sat in Tony's back yard for three hours, waiting for kids who never came. Tony's dad had admitted the mistake a week later when he found the invitations in his briefcase, but it was still ten years before either one of them threw a party again.

"They'll be here," Jess said, with a flick of Alfredo sauce at his face. "They've got ten minutes yet."

At that moment, they both jumped, and then laughed, when they heard a loud knock at the door. Tony went to answer it, and found Abby, McGee, Ducky and Palmer all standing there with grins on their faces, carrying a variety of wines and desserts. A minute later, Gibbs walked in with a bag of custom-blended coffee – "Italian blend", he said, as he smiled at Jess and tossed the bag to Tony. Ziva was the last one to arrive, with a bottle of wine and a look on her face that seemed to indicate that she wasn't there totally of her own volition. But whatever disagreements or preoccupations might have been on peoples' minds as they walked in the door, they were instantly swept away by the overpowering smell of garlic in the apartment and the sheer volume of food.

It was nearly four hours later when the last of the pasta dishes had been cleared, packed up, and split between the guests to take home as left-overs. The meal had been one of stories, jokes, case discussions, and an alphabet game or two. Gibbs had done terribly in the "name a movie that starts with this letter" game, although Palmer had totally given Tony a run for his money, much to everyone's surprise. Ziva and Jess had exchanged jokes in three different languages – often laughing uproariously – until the others began to protest. Gibbs and Jess had spent more than a few moments during the evening chatting privately at their end of the table, while Ducky was deep into a story or Tony was regaling everyone with a tale of his youth. Tony found this amusing, and teased Jess about it a couple of times in the kitchen, with a little sing-song version of, "Jessie's got a boyfriend … Jessie's got a boyfriend …"

When it was time for dessert and coffee, Jess headed into the kitchen to pull it all together. Ziva followed with the last of the wine glasses.

"Thank you," Jess said, as Ziva handed her the glasses and started arranging napkins on the dessert platter.

Ziva glanced back into the dining room, where Abby and McGee were teasing Tony about Purple Man – a comic book character that Tony had recently revealed was his childhood hero. Ziva turned back to Jess. "You've known Tony since childhood?" she asked, with a glint of disbelief in her tone. "You've actually been friends since you were children?"

"Yes …" Jess answered, cautiously. "Why?"

"Well," Ziva laughed. "He's … he's TONY."

"And …?" Jess challenged.

"I just don't see how you could have lasted all this time," Ziva continued, the wine she'd had making her unaware that she was stepping into quicksand.

"Why?" Jess asked innocently.

"Well," Ziva said, "the childish jokes, the ego, the sexual innuendo …" She waved a hand back in Tony's direction.

"Look, Ziva," Jess said, pushing her temper into the background, "I know you've done a dossier on Tony. I know that you have more information on him than anyone in the room – except for me. You know which buttons you can push to take him down a peg." Ziva acknowledged the statement.

"You know how to play to his insecurities," Jess said. "He told me about the 'dinner where everyone was invited but Tony' thing …"

"Miss Kennedy…" Ziva interrupted.

"Jess," Jess corrected her.

"Jess …" Ziva started again. "If you have something to say, just say it. Stop beating around the bush – it's 'bush', right?" Jess nodded. "Yes," Ziva said. "Stop beating around the bush and just tell me, clearly, what you mean."

Tony and Gibbs had both shifted their attention to the scene in the kitchen by this time. Tony saw Jess smile. To anyone else, it would have been a nice, common, non-committal smile. But Tony knew it was her "the gloves are off" smile. He got up and headed for the kitchen.

Jess looked Ziva full in the eyes and spoke calmly. "Tony has been my best friend nearly all my life. He's had my back since I was nine and is the most important person in the world to me. If you ever do anything to intentionally hurt him again," she paused so that the full effect of the words would not be lost, "I will kill you." She smiled. "Is that clear enough?"

Ziva returned the stare. It took a few seconds for her to answer. "Yes," she said. "Crystal."

Jess held her gaze for a moment, and then her entire face went instantly from steely resolve to Betty Crocker hostess. "Great!" she bubbled, with a smile to Ziva. "Coffee?"

Ziva politely refused and turned to walk into the dining room.

Jess continued to pull the dessert tray together, and Tony walked past Ziva and into the kitchen.

"Jessica …?" Tony said, with a light, but accusatory look on his face.

"Yes?" she replied, innocently, not looking up from the dessert tray.

"You just gave Ziva the 'I will kill you' speech, didn't you?" he said, trying to sound serious, but failing badly.

She paused, then looked up, guiltily. "Yeah."

He shook his head and gave her a light headsmack and then a kiss on the forehead. "Brat," he said. She tried to look contrite as she handed him the plates and forks.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

The next morning, Jess and Tony woke up at about 8 o'clock, each one just a bit hung over from a long night, a lot of food, a little too much wine, and not enough sleep. They sat in bed and did a little recap of the previous night's events.

"I can't believe you're going to go on a date with Leroy Jethro Gibbs," Tony said, for the third time.

"God, Tony … give it up." Jess rolled her eyes and tried not to take the bait.

"No, seriously," Tony continued. "That's like me dating …"

"Paula?" Jess said, with a sideways glance.

"Kind of," Tony replied, carefully. He was just now realizing that he was in dangerous waters. He mentally berated himself for bringing this up when they were both too tired.

Paula Cassidy had never been Jess' favorite of Tony's girlfriends. The two women got along okay, but Jess never really thought Paula took Tony seriously enough. She treated him like he was disposable. And every time Paula left, Tony would do a couple of days in self-pity mode. Jess never minded picking up those pieces – Tony had certainly done it for her enough times – but she hated that Paula looked at it all as a game that she was winning, and not as a possible actual relationship. Tony really liked Paula, and it bothered Jess that Paula couldn't or wouldn't see that.

"Actually," Tony said, trying to make his point clearer, "it's more like me dating Ziva."

"How do you figure that?" Jess asked, with a furrowed brow and a little bit of anger starting to work its way to the surface.

"He's … I don't know, Jess. He's just not your type." Tony said, with more condescension in his voice than he meant to be there.

She looked at him incredulously. "Are you saying he's out of my league?"

"NO," Tony said, forcefully. He tried again. "He's been married three times."

"And so that makes him … what? … unsuitable in some way?" Jess said, a little more loudly than she'd intended to. "I don't exactly have a clean and virtuous past."

"It's not the same thing," Tony said, trying not to get angry.

"It's exactly the same thing," Jess countered. "Everyone's got a past, Tony."

He ignored that opening and moved on. Stupidly, stubbornly moved on.

"But it's Gibbs," Tony said again, as if that would make it clear.

"And …?" Jess said, now totally frustrated. Then the lightbulb went off.

"It's the boss thing, isn't it? You don't want it to be uncomfortable at work – me dating your boss. Or, rather, what happens if I STOP dating your boss."

"That has nothing to do with it," Tony said, tired of the topic, but not willing to give in. "And besides, it's not like that's never happened before. The whole 'dating and dropping the boss' thing."

"Back atcha, pal," Jess said, tossing back the covers and standing up. She looked at him and down at the bed. "And it's not like this is the first time you've been in bed with the boss' girlfriend either."

"Ouch," Tony said, as he winced.

Jess sat back down onto the bed, the fire gone. "I'm sorry, Tony. I can't believe I just said that."

Tony smiled a small, weary smile. "Totally deserved, and incredibly overdue," he said. "You've been holding that back for a while."

"Nine years," she said, with a rueful laugh. "Although I will admit that my dad did deserve it at the time. He cheated on mom, and then his mistress met you and cheated on him. There's some symmetry there, I guess."

She sat against the headboard and drew her knees up against her chest, dropping her chin to rest on her knees.

"It's just dinner, Tony," she said, staring straight ahead. "I'm not marrying the guy. This isn't some convoluted version of 'Sabrina' we're playing out."

"I know," Tony said. "It's just … weird. I don't know if I'm more protective of you or of Gibbs."

"Really?" Jess said, now totally amused with this topic and Tony's confusion.

"Seriously… I mean … it's GIBBS," Tony said again. "Second-B-for-bastard. That kind of scares me a little bit."

"Don't think I can hold my own?" Jess said, with a smile.

"You, I'm not worried about," Tony teased. "I'm worried about HIM never being the same again."

She was just about to smack him over the head with a pillow when they heard the unmistakable crash of a breaking window.


	6. Chapter 5

Tony jumped out of bed and grabbed his gun from the dresser. "Stay here!" he said to Jess as he slowly went to the door.

"Tony!" Jess said in a loud whisper. "Broken glass … put your shoes on."

He gave her an incredulous look that clearly said, "We're under attack, and you're worried about my feet?" but he slid his loafers on anyway.

He moved out into the hallway, and looked both ways, inching his way to the living room. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone rang.

"Mr. DiNozzo," said the man leaving a message, "we just got a silent alarm trip from your apartment. Is everything okay?"

Tony picked up the phone and said, "Looks like it. A rock or something just came through the window. There's been some damage."

"We'll send someone over," said the voice on the line. Tony thanked him and hung up.

"It's clear, Jess," Tony said. She walked out of the bedroom, still in pajamas. "Hey!" Tony yelled as she entered the living room barefoot. "Slippers or something, OK? There's broken glass out here." Jess shook her head and turned back into the bedroom. Tony's eyes followed her as she put on some sneakers. Then he turned and started looking for whatever it was that came in through the window.

It didn't take long to find the lacrosse ball with the note attached. Tony went to his backpack and pulled out some gloves. He put them on, and picked up the now-identified flying object. He unfolded the note, and together, they read: _I guess I need to be more obvious. You didn't notice my gift yesterday. This is too easy. Trey_

Tony looked around the apartment, looking for anything that was out of place or new. Aside from the flowers that Ziva had brought and the rest of the dessert McGee had provided, there was nothing different. But wait … the flowers. He had assumed they were from Ziva, because he'd noticed them about the time Ziva got there. She'd been fussing with them – fixing the arrangement – and he assumed she'd brought them.

"What did Ziva bring to the party last night?" Tony asked Jess, so quickly and intensely that he startled her.

"Sorry," he said, as he put his hand on her shoulder. "What did Ziva bring last night?" he asked again, in a more normal tone of voice.

"Other than an attitude?" Jess said. Tony glared. "OK … let me think."

"She brought wine," Jess said, as she remembered. "That red wine from Israel; and she brought the pistachios that we put with the antipasto. Why?"

"The flowers," Tony said. "They weren't there yesterday when we left, but they were there at dinner. Who brought them?"

Jess' face paled. They both jumped when they heard a knock at the door. It was the security company, there to check on the damage.

By the time the security company left and the glass was cleaned up, Jess and Tony were both ready to get out of there. The security guys had done a plywood patch for the window, promising to have a glazier come by in a day or two to install new glass. Tony had tossed Jess a pair of gloves, and they bagged the flowers, the vase, the lacrosse ball, and anything else they could find that was remotely foreign to the environment. They dressed quickly and headed to NCIS.

"Damn!" said Tony, as they walked into the building and saw HAZMAT tape everywhere. "There's that biochemical drill this morning." He looked at his watch – it was 9:32am. "It'll be another half-hour before we can get to my desk." He stood there, holding his box of evidence, as Jess looked around the lobby for any other options.

Then Tony turned and grabbed Jess' arm. "We can use the lab!"

"Are you sure Abby won't mind?" Jess said, as she followed him to the stairs.

"She's probably there already," Tony said with a smile. "She can get a head start on this while we try to access Trey's prison records."

Loud music was blasting as Tony and Jess walked into the lab. Abby and McGee were there, playing computer games and obviously embroiled in enthusiastic competition with each other.

"Die, Elf Lord!" Abby yelled as she aimed a flying torch at his character.

"Not so fast, Raven Princess," McGee countered, utilizing one of his many escape routes.

"Having fun, kids?" Tony said, loudly enough to startle them both.

"T-Tony …" McGee stammered. "Uh … Jess." He began to redden. "Um … hi." He looked at his watch. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Yeah, Tony," Abby said with a smile, not at all embarrassed. "It's not like you to come in early on a day when we're allowed to come in late." She smiled and waved at Jess. "Killer party last night!" she bubbled. "I had cold lasagna for breakfast. It was awesome!"

"Thanks," Jess said with a small smile.

Both Abby and McGee noticed that Tony and Jess were somewhat preoccupied and not at all the fun and festive pair from the night before.

"What's in the box?" Abby said, looking to Tony for an explanation.

"Someone threw a lacrosse ball through my window this morning," Tony said. "And we found a couple of other things in the place that didn't seem to fit. Figured I'd bring them here and see if it was an accident or on purpose."

Abby stood and went to her work table. Tony put down the box, palming the bag with the note from Trey, just until he could explain what was going on. "Let's see what we've got," Abby said, as she started going through evidence bags.

Jess asked if she could borrow a computer. "Absolutely!" Abby said. "Timmy – get her set up, will you?" McGee quickly logged off and escorted Jess to a desk near the wall.

"Here," he said. "It might be less noisy over here." She smiled. "Do you need any help?" McGee asked, sincerely.

"No … thanks though," Jess replied. Then she looked back at McGee. "Elf Lord?" she said, with a questioning look.

"MMORPG," McGee said, with an embarrassed smile. "That stands for …"

"Massive multiplayer online role-playing game," Jess completed the thought with a nod. McGee looked at her with raised eyebrows. "I have nephews," Jess said with a one-shouldered shrug.

"Vile, evil, manic nephews," Tony tossed back over his shoulder. Jess laughed.

"Those are the best kind," Abby said.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

An hour later, Abby was logging evidence and Jess was deep into various computer searches. McGee was working with Abby, trying to determine the florist who had sold the flowers, while Tony stood behind Jess, copying down information and commenting on facts that were being found. No one noticed that it was now nearly 10:45am – forty-five minutes past the time when they were all supposed to be in the office.

The airdoors to the lab opened and everyone jumped. Ducky walked in.

"Ah …" he said, with a light tone and a smile. "Here you all are." Then he turned to Jess. "Many thanks again, my dear, for a delightful dinner party last night. It reminded me of a summer solstice celebration that I attended once in the Italian Alps …"

"Another time, Duck," Gibbs said, as he came through the lab doors, with Ziva right behind him. "Unless it has something to do with why Officer David and I have been sitting upstairs all alone."

Gibbs looked to Abby, McGee, Tony and Jess, all frozen in their places and looking back at him, guiltily. Ziva's expression was a mixture of annoyance that she'd been on her own for 45 minutes upstairs with Gibbs and disappointment that she hadn't been included in whatever it was everyone else was doing.

"Hi Jess," Gibbs said, with a serious, but inquisitive, expression. "I hadn't realized that we'd hired you."

Tony stepped forward to explain, as McGee and Abby quickly packed up evidence and Jess started saving files and hastily organizing papers.

"When we got up this morning," Tony began, "there was this crash …well, no, that didn't happen right away. First there was the argument …" Jess shot him a look. "Um … but … well … that doesn't really have anything to do with this, does it?" Tony fumbled through. "Anyway, there was this crash and then the alarm company called, and we noticed the flowers and there was the note …"

"There was a note?" Abby said, with surprise. She started going through the evidence box again. "I didn't process a note."

Tony sheepishly took it out of his pocket and handed it to her. "I can't BELIEVE you're holding out on me!" she said, swatting his shoulder.

Tony looked back at Gibbs. "So … anyway … this note and with the alarm and the window and everything …"

"Enough!" Gibbs yelled, at exactly the same time that McGee, reading the note over Abby's shoulder, said, "Who's Trey?"

There was silence.

"And you people say that my stories go off on tangents," Ducky said, sitting down near the desk where Jess was standing.

Gibbs glared at Ducky and then shifted that glare to Tony. "DiNozzo," Gibbs began, with enough of an edge in his voice to command everyone's full attention. "I ASKED for an explanation as to why my entire team is down in Abby's lab working on a case that I know nothing about."

"To be fair, Boss," Tony said, "it's not your entire team. Ziva was upstairs with you, and Palmer isn't here."

"DINOZZO!" Gibbs yelled.

Jess took a few steps forward and put herself between Gibbs and Tony. She looked around at the assembled group and then straight at Gibbs. "Look, I'm sorry," she said. "It's not Tony's fault."

She started to leave the lab, bumped into a counter, and dropped everything she was holding. McGee and Ziva exchanged a glance as she bent down to pick the papers up off the floor; Ducky and Abby moved to help her, but Gibbs sent a small shake of the head their way. He put his hand on Jess' back and took the files from her. She stood up and took a step away from Gibbs, and looked at Tony, unsure of what to do next.

"Maybe you should just tell us what's going on, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, much more gently than anyone had expected.


	7. Chapter 6

Tony looked at Jess, and very slightly cocked his head to the side. He raised an eyebrow and gave her a small nod. She frowned and looked at the group gathered around her. Tony was about to say something when she put her hand up to stop him.

"It was my junior year," Jess began, so softly Gibbs had to strain to hear. "Tony's senior year." She sighed.

"William Thompson Delray III – a/k/a 'Trey' –" she looked back at McGee, "was big man on campus that spring – captain of the basketball team, star of the lacrosse team. His dad was a business associate of my dad's, and I ended up tutoring him in physics. He needed a 'B' average in the course and he wasn't even close."

"Jess had this weird triple major," Tony cut in. "Physics, math and music…"

"Oh my God!" said Abby, jumping up from the table. "You're THAT Jessica Kennedy? I knew I recognized your name. I read your thesis on the relationships between mathematical chords and musical chords – where you tied it all to the circle of fifths and developed a theorem that reduced Beethoven's 9th to a math equation. That was brilliant!"

"Abs?" Gibbs said. "We need to hear the rest of this. You guys can compare notes later okay?"

McGee chuckled. Gibbs raised an eyebrow. McGee began to stammer. "'Compare notes' … music … I thought it was an intentional pun. It … um … wasn't, was it? Sorry … Boss …" He shrunk under Gibbs' gaze. Jess gave him a sympathetic smile.

"ANYway …" said Tony, moving them back to topic. "Jess had it pretty bad for this guy, much to the total delight of her parents, who were thrilled that she was spending more time with him than with 'that strange DiNozzo kid'." He prompted her on.

"Trey and I started dating – pretty heavily. Tony and I had just had this … thing … go wrong between us…" Tony and Jess exchanged a glance, "and so I loved the fact that I had this great guy to be with. I'm sure I totally threw myself at him." She shook her head.

"Anyway … a few weeks into this, Trey invited me to a dinner at the frat house. It was just the officers of the fraternity – Trey and the three other guys – and their girlfriends. Cocktail attire; catered; private. They did this a couple of times a year, and it was always a big deal. I had the perfect black cocktail dress, killer shoes, Prada shawl, Victoria's Secret underwear, the whole nine yards." Ziva rolled her eyes.

"It's important later," Jess said. Ziva blushed a bit and cleared her throat.

"She looked amazing," Tony said quietly.

"Really," Jess said with a bit of surprise in her voice. "I didn't realize you saw me leave." She looked at Tony for a second. Then she took a deep breath and continued.

"As it turned out, there wasn't really a dinner at all. Apparently, every time one of the officers started getting serious about someone new, there was a little fraternal 'initiation' that took place. The new girl was brought over to the house and introduced to the other officers and their girlfriends. Then, the other girlfriends left, and the new girlfriend …"

Her voice took on a more clinical tone, as if she were testifying as an expert witness.

"The other girlfriends left, and the new girlfriend and the officer-in-question would consummate their relationship in front of the other guys. And then, any of the other officers who wanted to were given free reign with the new girl. The idea was that once every guy had their turn, then the girl was off limits to anyone but her boyfriend. No flirting, no seductions, no trying to steal her away. They'd all had their chance, and that was that."

She looked around the room. No one was moving.

"As you might imagine," Jess continued, "I didn't think this was such a great idea. And I opted out. I got pissed and told them I was going to tell the national office what was going on, and that their secret was most definitely NOT safe with me." She looked at Tony, then back at Gibbs. "Which, of course, isn't the best thing to say to four guys with powerful friends and lots of motivation to not get caught."

She walked across the room and back, shaking out her hands to use up some nervous energy.

"I tried to leave, but Trey grabbed me and said that 'tradition was tradition', and he forced me down on the couch. He raped me, in front of the other three guys, who helped hold me down. Then, all three of them joined in, each taking their turn, with me screaming until I was hoarse and fighting all the way."

"The doctors in the emergency room said that the majority of her injuries that night were defensive," Tony said. "They'd never seen anyone fight back an attack like she had."

"Didn't do any good," she said, quietly. "When they were finally done, they loaded me into Trey's Jag and drove about five miles outside of town. They unceremoniously dumped me on the side of the road in only the dress. No shawl, no shoes, no stockings, no … underwear." She glanced at Ziva. "It was late March, in Ohio. 58 degrees, I think."

"I started walking back into town, looking for a phone booth, a house, anything." She looked over at McGee and Abby. "Not everyone had cellphones yet," she said with a shrug.

"I was out that night," Tony said. "It was, after all, a Saturday …" Gibbs shot him a look and Jess kind of laughed. He did an apologetic shrug and continued. "When I got home … fairly late, there were over a dozen messages on my answering machine, all from a waitress at a diner outside of town. The waitress was a little freaked. It took a while to piece it all together and figure out what was going on." He looked at Gibbs and then Ziva. "Jess had walked nearly three miles – barefoot with no coat, in 58 degree weather – before she found a diner with a phone she could use."

"By the time I got there," Tony continued, "Jess was huddled in a back booth, wrapped in a sweater from one of the waitresses and wearing a pair of socks that some customer had had in a bag in her car. She was in shock … wouldn't let anyone touch her. She was crying and begging them to not call the police until I got there."

Jess picked up the story. "Tony walked in and saw me and then it gets a little fuzzy. I remember him carrying me out and promising the waitress he'd buy her a new sweater … I remember him being in the room when they did the rape kit." She looked at Abby. "Forensics." Abby nodded, with a sympathetic smile.

"Jess was in the hospital for ten days," Tony said. "She had some … internal … injuries, a broken hand, concussion; all sorts of bruises and cuts on her face, and her feet were a mess. Once they released her, she was home for the rest of the semester."

"Tony stayed there the whole time," Jess said. "My parents, on the other hand, chose not to address it. They stayed away – didn't come to the hospital, the apartment, nothing. They were horrified that I had caused this rift between them and Trey's parents. The only positive thing was that Trey failed physics and got pulled from regionals. The lacrosse team lost in the first round."

"I'm sorry," Jess said, with an apologetic smile. "This is turning out to be a longer story than I'd anticipated."

"Oh, we're used to those," Abby said, glancing over at Ducky. The laugh the comment brought broke the tension for a moment. Jess sat down on one of the tall lab stools. Tony walked over and stood behind her, leaning against a table.

Tony took up the story, "When we went down to press charges, we discovered that Trey's father had already been there, taking out a restraining order on Jess."

"On Jess?" McGee said, with a shocked look. "What did she do?"

"I had raked a fairly decent swath of scratches across his handsome little boy's face," Jess said. "They were planning on charging me with assault. I pressed charges against Trey and the other three for rape, false imprisonment, assault, kidnapping, and … a few other things. Tony's father found out that I couldn't afford a decent lawyer, and he actually sent his own."

Everyone turned to look at Tony. Even Gibbs couldn't mask his shock at that statement. Tony shrugged.

"My father knew that I wouldn't let Jess do this alone, and he figured if a DiNozzo was going to sit in the plaintiff's chair in court, then that DiNozzo better have a damn good chance of winning. Plus, I think he was a little pissed that Jess' parents thought I was a bad influence."

"Wait a second," Abby interrupted. She looked at Jess. "You said that you and Tony were going through a … thing … during all this. Did that get solved?"

"The second I walked in the diner," Tony said. "Nothing else mattered after that."

Jess looked back at Tony. "I didn't know what I was going to do if you didn't come for me."

"Any time, anywhere," Tony said, softly. "We had a deal." Abby smiled.

"So, what happened in court?" Ziva asked. "Was justice dished up?"

Jess looked over her shoulder at Tony with a confused expression.

"Served," Ducky offered. "Was justice served."

"Ah …" said Jess. "Well, as it turned out, it was my word against the four of them."

Tony continued, his voice taking on a sarcastic edge. "The guys maintained that all of the bruises and the broken hand were unrelated to the 'dinner experience', and happened when they were all out joy-riding in Trey's Jag that night after a bout of rough group sex."

"Tony's dad's lawyer said that we needed to find someone else this had happened to, and so Tony started spending all his time researching who else these guys had dated," Jess said. "He'd spend hours trying to find connections between people. We had a wall of charts in the living room of the apartment, and he was constantly following leads. It nearly cost him his scholarship."

"But turned him into a damn fine investigator," Gibbs said, under his breath.

"Witnesses!" Tony exclaimed, hands pumping the air. "I have witnesses!"

Jess let a small laugh escape and looked at Gibbs with a twinkle in her eye. "Did you hear something? I didn't hear anything." Gibbs grinned back at her.

"Nice try, darlin', but I know he said it, and I know you all heard it," Tony said smugly, resuming his place behind to her. The mood became serious again. Tony squeezed Jess' shoulders. "Tell them the rest," he prompted.

"Thanks to Tony's investigations," Jess continued, with a nod towards Gibbs, "we came up with six other women that Trey or one of the guys had brought to these little initiation dinners. Two of them didn't think it was that big of a deal; one of them wouldn't even let us in the door, and the other three wouldn't come forward."

"Jess totally talked two of them into it," Tony said.

"Well," Jess corrected, "I convinced one, you brought in the other."

"But they testified, yes?" Ziva asked, a little impatiently.

"Yes," Jess said, "they did. And we got convictions on Trey and two others. One of them – Adam Carmichael – turned state's evidence and got off with probation."

"But apparently, Trey is out now," Gibbs said, looking at Tony with a 'you should have told me sooner' expression on his face. "How long did he get?"

"He got 18 to 24, Boss," Tony said, physically moving out of Gibbs' gaze. "Out in 18. Due in part to a shiny new medical clinic donated by daddy. He got out last week; showed up at Jess' place in Alaska two days later."

"But …" McGee looked confused. "In a case like this, wouldn't it be automatic to put a restraining order on him as a condition of parole?"

"Yes, Probie, it would," Tony said, acknowledging McGee's line of reasoning. "But Trey's not a big one for following directions. He's one of those 'the rules don't apply to me' kind of guys."

"OK," said Gibbs, providing a quick summary. "We know Trey is out there, and apparently looking to settle a score. What happened to the other guys? Could they be helping him?"

"That's what we were working on," said Jess, as she looked at Tony. Three pictures came up on the plasma as Tony started to speak.

"Mark Torrington got 15 years, but ended up with an extended sentence – he tried to escape a couple of times. He's still inside. Neil …"

"Jacobs," supplied Jess.

"Right. Neil Jacobs died in prison. Wrong place, wrong time – gang fight," Tony said.

"What about Carmichael?" asked Gibbs.

Jess spoke up before Tony had a chance. "He displayed a lot of bravado about being the guy who didn't go to jail. He'd brag at parties about our little 'sex party' and about how he was going to drag my name through the mud to avenge his friends. I lost a scholarship because of all the talk and rumors. And I was …," she looked at Tony. "What's the word I'm looking for?"

Tony shook his head, not knowing what to say.

"Shunned?" said Ziva. Jess looked at Ziva and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Shunned."

She continued. "Adam was walking home from a football game that fall, when somebody jumped him. Knocked him out, broke his legs, beat him up pretty badly. He was in the hospital for six weeks and in a wheelchair for two months after. I think he lives in Michigan now. Sells insurance or something."

"Who attacked him?" Ducky asked, stealing a glance at Tony, who suddenly felt the urge to work a kink out of his neck.

"Don't know," said Jess, also glancing Tony's way. "They were never caught."

Everyone looked at Tony, who took a deep breath and reddened slightly. Gibbs broke the silence.

"All right, then," Gibbs said. "McGee – you find this Carmichael guy in Michigan and see if he's heard from his buddy Trey."

"You got it, Boss," McGee said as he turned to one of Abby's computers.

"Abby – I want a full check of everything Tony and Jess brought in from Tony's place. If there's a fingerprint that doesn't belong to Tony, Jess or one of us, I want it run."

"On it!" Abby said.

"Ziva – you stay with Jess. She doesn't go to the bathroom without you there, you got me?"

Ziva began to protest. "Gibbs … are you sure my talents aren't of more use … elsewhere?"

"Problem, Ziva?" Gibbs said, glancing at Jess, who shrugged.

"Fine," Ziva said. "I'll stick to her like paste."

"Glue," said McGee, Tony and Jess in unison.

"Whatever," Ziva muttered.

"Tony, you're with me," Gibbs ordered.

"Um … Boss?" Tony said, as he followed him to the elevator.

"What's the problem, DiNozzo? We've got a case," said Gibbs, as the elevator doors closed.


	8. Chapter 7

Gibbs and Tony had just spent four hours in MTAC, participating in an unbelievably unhelpful series of video conferences and phone calls. They'd talked to the police chief in Ohio who had run the original case and then the prison warden in Philadelphia, which is where Trey had been sent at the request of his father. The police chief had no further information to impart, but the prison warden had spoken well of Trey, in general. Over the past few years, Trey had helped other inmates study for their GEDs and had been instrumental in updating the prison's computer lab, but the warden also mentioned that Trey was known for having a temper. The first few years he was in prison, Trey was disciplined dozens of times for mouthing off to guards or inciting fights in the exercise yard. But about eight years in, after he lost his final appeal, his lawyer had urged him to shape up, and by all indications, he did.

Next, they got in touch with Trey's parole officer, who had put out his own BOLOs on the man when he missed his initial appointment. The officer promised Gibbs any help he could provide in tracking Trey down and getting him back into the system, but had no manpower and no budget to do more than just make the offer.

Gibbs and Tony had spoken to two different prison psychiatrists, both of whom had weighed in on Trey's parole and found him fit to re-enter society. Not "totally rehabilitated", one of them had stressed, but "not deemed an imminent threat either." Tony had crushed his coffee cup and thrown it across MTAC in response.

Finally, they had spoken to three separate assistants – business, personal, and social – to manufacturing magnate William Thompson Delray Jr., all of whom insisted that their boss had not heard from his son since he was released. Delray Jr. himself called them back after they spoke to assistant #3 to confirm this, and had willingly offered both his private and business phone and e-mail records, along with any other paperwork they might need. Delray Jr. remembered the rape trial well, and was still under the impression that his son had been falsely accused and wrongly convicted. In his mind, Jess and Tony were the ones who should have been punished. He went into a short tirade about the DiNozzo family having paid for the conviction by influencing a judge, and did not lighten up even a little when Gibbs made it clear that a DiNozzo was listening.

"Nice guy," Gibbs said, after they got off the phone with Delray Jr.

"Yeah," Tony said, with a smile and a shake of the head. "Just like I remember him. My father is suddenly not looking so bad."

Gibbs looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"He may have yelled a lot … and totally humiliated me from time to time …," Tony said. "And he may have cut me off when I was twelve..." He stopped in confusion, not entirely certain of the point he was trying to make.

"But he always had a reason, however … obtuse?" Gibbs offered.

"Yeah," Tony said, looking over at Gibbs. "Thanks, Boss. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with that."

Gibbs chuckled.

"The guy still won't ever win 'Father of the Year'," Tony began again. "But …"

"Stop talking, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

"Yes, Boss."

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

Meanwhile, McGee had reached Adam Carmichael in Grand Rapids. Carmichael maintained that he had not heard from Trey in over 15 years – he'd heard from him for a year or so after Trey was first put in prison, but the Carmichaels had moved four times since then, and hadn't had any further contact. Carmichael had also not spoken to Neil Jacobs before he died or to Mark Torrington. He said that everything he knew about the original attack on Jess was already part of court record. When asked about the attack that had put him in the hospital for six weeks, Carmichael had said, quietly, that he'd gotten what he deserved. Gibbs had ordered a basic monitoring of Carmichael's phone and e-mail, to see if he tried to get in touch with Trey after the conversation with McGee, but it was doubtful they'd find anything. No one really believed that Carmichael was a key player – or a player at all – in any of this.

Abby had processed all of the evidence that Tony and Jess had collected and had come up with only two prints that were unaccounted for. One of them ended up belonging to the florist who had sold Trey the flowers; the other belonged to the sporting goods clerk who had sold Trey the lacrosse ball. All she got from the note was proof that it had been printed the same day it was left behind, but she couldn't find anything about the paper or ink that was in any way remarkable.

Ziva had also run into one dead end after another as she tried to track Trey's movements once he left prison. He'd obviously made it from Pennsylvania to Alaska in a very short amount of time, but there was no paper trail at all. If he flew or drove or took a bus, there was no record of it, and the only person the local LEOs could find who even recognized his photo was a clerk at a dollar store in Barrow where Trey had purchased some greeting cards, gloves, and two rolls of duct tape. The clerk remembered him as being unusually polite, but somewhat uncomfortable around people.

Ziva had just hung up her phone after talking to the clerk when she heard Jess' frustrated growl from Tony's desk.

"How can one person cover his tracks so completely?" Jess asked, to no one in particular. "He's traveled cross-country twice in two weeks, and there is no record of it anywhere!" She slammed her fists onto Tony's desk in frustration.

McGee looked over at Ziva. "Maybe you guys should, um … take a little break?" McGee said, ignoring Ziva's incredulous look. "Go downstairs for a cup of tea or something?" There was no response. "Ziva?" McGee prompted.

Ziva sighed. She hated being a "people person."

"Come on, Jess," Ziva said, trying her best to be supportive. "McGee is right." She shot a look to McGee that made him quickly return to his computer screen. "We need a break."

Jess looked up at Ziva, and Ziva met her eyes, with an expression that indicated that this was a mandatory, not voluntary field trip. Jess sighed.

"Yes," she said, defeated. "Tea. Of course." The two women walked to the elevator, and McGee was both relieved that he could work in silence and slightly fearful about what Ziva was going to do to him for having made the suggestion.

Tony and Gibbs were waiting for one last phone link in MTAC before calling it a day. They were trying to reach the warden at the prison in Ohio where Mark Torrington was still an inmate. The connection had been giving them trouble all afternoon due to a batch of severe thunderstorms in the Midwest that were taking out phone lines left and right. As they waited for the storm system to move through, they both took a break to stretch and refill coffee cups. Tony ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes, tiredly.

"So…" Gibbs began. "You and Jess go back a long way?"

Tony nodded. "I can't remember a time when we weren't friends. We did everything together. I took a lot of heat as a kid for spending so much time hanging around a GIRL." He screwed his face up into a relatively accurate representation of a fourth-grade boy looking at the opposite sex with disgust.

"Yes," Gibbs laughed. "'Cooties' – I remember." Tony chuckled.

"We were each other's fallback on everything – homework, alibis, advice. We were the lords of the playground in grade school – spent more time in the principal's office than in class. And then in junior high, she made sure I passed algebra, and I made sure she passed US History." Gibbs looked at him with raised eyebrows. "We were studying the Civil War," Tony said, with a shrug. "In high school we got each other through more bad dates and break-ups than I care to think about." Tony blew out a breath. "And then in college …" he smiled a small smile. "Well … you've heard the college highlights." He worked another kink out of his neck, before looking up, thoughtfully. "She saved my life once."

"I've got the warden, Agent Gibbs," the communications tech interrupted. Gibbs filed Tony's comment away to ask about later.

"Warden Stone," Gibbs said, putting his headset back on. "How's the weather in Ohio?"

"'Thunderstorms are us' tonight, I'm afraid," the warden replied. "What can I do for you?"

"We're looking for information about one of your inmates – Mark Torrington. He was incarcerated about eighteen years ago."

The warden chuckled. "I know him well," Stone said. "He was a jackrabbit … a runner. We had to keep him on a pretty tight leash."

"Was?" Tony asked. "Is he not there any more?"

"Oh, he's here," the warden said. "He just doesn't try to run any more. The last time he broke out, he was supposed to take some messages with him – gang orders from one of our lifers – and pass them on to lieutenants on the outside. When he got caught, as he always did, our guards found the messages on him. Torrington offered to provide names and places to the local police and their gang squad in return for a more lenient punishment. Didn't make Mr. Torrington too popular with the rest of the prison population. He's been in solitary – for his own protection – for the past three years."

"And how's he been, since that happened?" Gibbs asked.

"Model prisoner," the warden replied. "We haven't had a problem with him. He should be out of here in another 12 to 18 months."

"Does he have any visitors – get any phone calls, e-mails?" Tony asked.

"I can send you a log," the warden said. "But there's not much on it. His sister stops by once a year, and he calls his parents once a week on Sundays. That's pretty much it. The only Internet sites he accesses are sports related."

"Thank you warden, we appreciate that," Gibbs said. "One last thing … does the name William Delray or Trey Delray show up on any of Torrington's paperwork?"

There was silence as the warden scanned the documents. "Nope," Stone said. "Nothing other than the original arrest warrant. I'll send that along too. Is there anything else you need?"

"No, sir," Gibbs said. "Thank you for your help. I'll get you an e-mail address for those documents."

"10-4," the warden said.

"You think there's anything there, Boss?" Tony said, as they both took off their headsets and collected the few notes they'd taken.

"I doubt it," Gibbs said. "If every gang in the Midwest is mad at this guy, it's not likely that he'd find any help on the outside for getting a message through to Trey. McGee can go through the phone and e-mail logs to see if there's something there, but my gut tells me that Trey's doing this on his own."

"Yeah," Tony said. "That's what I get too."

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

Ziva and Jess were sitting in the cafeteria, drinking tea and not talking, when Ducky walked in. Both women's faces lit up a bit when the coroner arrived.

"Ducky!" they exclaimed in unison, each one glad to have someone else to talk to.

"My goodness," Ducky replied with a smile, "I haven't received a welcome like that since the morning I vacated my tent on the island of Pago Pago and saw fifteen virgins waiting for me."

Jess laughed, and Ziva smiled. "Perhaps you can relate the details to Jess, while I go check on Abby," Ziva said, standing to leave. She smiled sweetly. "I'll be back in … oh … an hour or so."

"Perfect!" Ducky said. "That will be just enough time." He sat down as Ziva headed to the exit. Jess chuckled and shook her head.

"What is so funny, my dear?" Ducky asked.

"Well," Jess said, as she glanced back to watch Ziva leave, "I'm not sure what they call it in Israel, but in the US, it's called 'payback'." She shifted her attention back to Ducky. "So," she said, "tell me about Pago Pago."

Back upstairs, Tony and Gibbs came out of MTAC to find McGee and Ziva both working at their desks, finishing up some tasks and stacking files.

"Uh … Ziva?" Tony asked, with his eyebrows raised and a glance over to his desk. "Where's Jess?"

Ziva looked up. "She's in the cafeteria having tea with Ducky," Ziva said, with an innocent expression. "When I left, they were talking about the virgins of Pago Pago."

"You are an evil woman, Ziva David," Tony said, with a half-smile.

"She started it," Ziva replied, under her breath.


	9. Chapter 8

By 7pm that night, the team had hit a multitude of dead ends. Abby had just received some DNA evidence from the original attack and was running it against some trace evidence from the note, trying to find any possible link between the current evidence and Trey's fraternity buddies. The rest of the team decided to grab some dinner and regroup at Tony's place.

The scene around the table was quite different from the night before. There was no table full of laughing, happy friends eating pasta and drinking wine. This time, it was greasy burgers and caffeine-laced sodas, and the group was limited to five: Gibbs, Tony, McGee, Ziva and Jess. Abby was there too, if you counted the video feed currently on McGee's computer.

"And all that means what, Abby?" Gibbs said, in a tired voice.

"It means I got nothing, Bossman," Abby said in a defeated tone. "Sorry Tony. Sorry Jess."

"OK, Abs," Gibbs said. "We're going to check on a couple more things over here. Hang tight for another hour or so, okay?"

"Roger that," Abby said, with a salute. The connection was severed.

As the five people around the table were looking at each other, trying to figure out where to go next, a spinning icon appeared on the screen. It said, "Open me" and was accompanied by a smiley face with a halo over it. Gibbs looked at the assembled group then moved the cursor and double-clicked. A new image replaced the icon – it was the station logo for WOSU-TV at the University of Ohio. An announcer's voice said, "We interrupt the program you are not watching to bring you this special presentation." The logo faded out, and a video screen appeared. Gibbs clicked on the "Play" button.

"Oh my God," Tony said, as they all watched what was unfolding on the computer screen. It was news footage of the original rape trial over 18 years ago. A much younger Jess was being hounded by press as a much younger Tony tried to shield her. As Trey was being led away by a bailiff and two guards, he was screaming at her. "You'll pay for this, you little bitch!" he yelled as he was being dragged off. "He can't protect you forever!"

Tony instinctively reached out and took Jess' hand.

The footage abruptly ended, and was replaced with an extreme close-up of Trey's face. This was a much more current – possibly live – feed, judging by Trey's scruffy appearance and his close-cropped prison haircut.

"Hi Jessie," he taunted. "Guess who?"

"It's fun looking at old home movies, isn't it?" Trey continued. "I've got some snapshots to share too." He held up a mug shot of himself taken the day he went to prison, the tracks from Jess' nails still visible on his face. The next photo was of Jess – it had been taken at the hospital the night of the attack. The photo showed a badly beaten woman, her face covered with bruises. One eye was nearly swollen shut, with red replacing the normal white of the eye. Behind the photo, they heard Trey's voice. "I can make you look like this again," he said, in a breathy voice laced with excitement and anticipation.

It took Jess two tries to pull away from Tony. She ran to the sink and threw up the meal that she'd just had. Gibbs pulled out his gun and did a quick survey of the apartment; Ziva followed his lead and checked the front and back yards and the perimeter. McGee tried to backtrack the connection and trace the source of the signal. Tony's focus stayed on Jess.

She stood at the sink, taking deep breaths. She turned, and wiped her mouth with a towel. "Well …" she said, shakily. "That was fun."

Both Tony and Gibbs moved towards her, but she waved them off.

"I'm going to go … um … rinse out my mouth," Jess said, as she headed up the hall. And then, talking to herself, her voice took on a sarcastic tone. "Why, hello Trey," she said under her breath, "Lovely to see you. No, I haven't seen your face in my nightmares at all for the past 18 years, why do you ask?" She slammed the bathroom door behind her.

"What does she do for a living?" Ziva asked, suddenly.

Tony was still looking up the hall. "She's an operations specialist," he said, turning back to Ziva. "She gets stationed wherever they need her, for all types of military and government ops. She monitors troop movements, does resource allocation, battle and disaster scenarios – anything strategic. Her current gig is working up in Alaska with NOAA."

"The man with the ark?" Ziva asked, with a confused expression.

"Different Noah," said Tony.

"NOAA stands for 'National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association'," said McGee. "They predict changes in the Earth's environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources."

"You reading that off a website, Probie?" Tony said, with a small smile.

"Um … no," McGee said. "I did a position paper on them once."

"Why do you ask?" Gibbs said, trying to get the conversation back to its original point.

"Well," said Ziva, indicating the computer screen. "It's quite clear that this is all going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe she should stay with friends until …"

Tony cut her off. "She IS staying with friends, Ziva." He glared at her. "She's safe here, and she's stronger than you think."

"If you say so," Ziva said, dismissively.

"I say so," Tony challenged.

"Kids…" Gibbs said, with frustration and fatigue lacing his voice. "That's enough."

"Look, Ziva," Tony said with a sigh. "She's had a rough couple of weeks, OK? Just … I don't know … cut her a little slack."

"I'm just saying," Ziva continued, stubbornly, "that maybe the whole investigation would be easier if she …"

Gibbs was the one to cut her off this time. "Enough," he said again. He looked at Ziva. "Eighteen years ago, Jess was victimized by someone she trusted, and now the dirtbag has come back to finish what he started. Just because she's handling that differently than you would, Ziva, doesn't mean she's not capable of handling it at all."

Ziva mumbled something under her breath in Hebrew.

"Care to translate, Officer David?" Gibbs said, pointedly.

"It's an old Israeli proverb," said Jess, walking back in from the hallway. "'Never dis the boss' girlfriend.'"

"Dis?" McGee said, with a confused look.

Jess shrugged. "I paraphrased."

She looked at Ziva, who suddenly found it necessary to look down at her hands. Gibbs' face showed a very slight smile.

"How're ya doing?" Tony asked, looking up at Jess.

"I'm good," she said, unconvincingly.

"Liar," Tony said gently, before turning his attention to Gibbs. "So …," he said. "What's the plan?"

"It's clear that Trey is nearby," Gibbs said. "We know he's been here, both personally and virtually. The personal evidence didn't turn anything up; McGee, do what you can to see if he left any virtual footprints behind."

"On it," McGee said, as he pulled the laptop to him and continued typing.

"Tony and I'll head over to GW," Gibbs said. "They have a chapter of the same frat there. Maybe Trey stopped by to say hello … use a computer … borrow some equipment. It would be a safe place for him to go, and he really wouldn't have to worry about being recognized. Most of the guys in the frat would have been in kindergarten when this first happened."

"Oh … thanks for THAT," Jess said, with a tired laugh and a mock-hurt expression. Gibbs blushed slightly, much to the amusement of everyone else.

"Ziva," Gibbs continued, "do a more thorough check of the perimeter and see if anything looks hinky. If you find anything, get it to Abby. And …"

"Yes," Ziva said. "I know. Stay with Jess."

"Look at the bright side," Gibbs said, as he and Tony headed out the door. "If Trey shows up, you have my permission to shoot him."

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

Two hours later, Tony and Gibbs called from the University. No one had seen Trey – at least, no one at the frat house or in the computer labs. Ziva reported that McGee had not been able to run a trace – the signal kept bouncing back to an unused ISP in Ocean City. She and McGee had done a full sweep of the apartment and had found a few things out of place – but it was just as likely to be Tony's neighbor's cat as it was Trey. McGee had taken what they'd found back to Abby's lab, where he also planned to try the trace again, given the additional resources at the NCIS offices.

Jess and Ziva had spent a few moments staring silently at each other in the living room before Jess simply decided to go to bed. She'd been in Tony's room since McGee left.

"OK," Gibbs said, after taking that all in. "There's nothing else we can do tonight. You can go home once Tony gets there. Back in the office at 0700." Gibbs snapped his phone shut.

Ten minutes later, the door to Tony's apartment opened. Ziva was eager to leave. It had been a long day for everyone, and she was tired. She came around the corner of the entryway, actually happy to see her partner for a change. "That was quick," she said. She never saw the man at the door or the gun he was holding. She did, however, feel it when the butt of the gun connected with the side of her head. She was just coming to twenty minutes later when Tony ran in the open apartment door. He checked on Ziva and then ran to his room. It was empty.

At that moment, Tony's cellphone rang. He snapped it open. "DiNozzo!" he practically yelled into the phone.

There was a short chuckle and then, a taunting voice. "I told her you couldn't protect her forever," Trey's unmistakable voice said from the other end of the line. "Do you know where your Jessie is?"

"Trey," Tony began, not sure whether to threaten or plead.

"Save it, Special Agent DiNozzo," Trey said, over-enunciating every syllable of his name. "This is my game now. Check your e-mail at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. And don't worry," Trey said, with an overly-solicitous tone. "I'll tuck Jess in tonight." Then, he hung up.

Tony turned and threw his phone against the wall, barely missing Ziva as she came into the room, gun drawn, blood still on the side of her face.

"Are you alright?" Tony asked, looking over at her with concern.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Ziva said quietly. "I really am."

"Don't apologize, Ziva," Tony said absently, as he sat on the bed and picked up Jess' phone to call Gibbs. "It's a sign of weakness."

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

A half-hour later, Gibbs was back at Tony's apartment. Ducky had been summoned to check on Ziva, and then had driven her home. McGee and Abby hadn't gotten anything from the items McGee had brought, and he was no closer to backtracing Trey's signal. Gibbs sent them home as well, telling them to be back at NCIS in the morning. They would be waiting for Trey's call.

It was nearly 3am by the time everything was cleaned up and everyone sent home. Tony and Gibbs were standing on the back deck, staring out into the darkness.

"You should get some sleep, Tony," Gibbs said, quietly. "We have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring."

"Nah – I'm okay," Tony said. "You go ahead, though. There are extra pillows and blankets in the hall closet, and the couch is actually pretty comfortable. I've fallen asleep there a hundred times."

There was a beat of silence.

"I guess it's really too late to get a good night's sleep now," Gibbs said, not moving from his spot next to Tony. "You want some coffee?"

Tony laughed a little. "Sure."

There were just two cups left in the coffeemaker from earlier. Gibbs brought them out to the deck, and he and Tony each sat in one of the Adirondack chairs.

They sat there silently, drinking coffee.

"You said before that Jess saved your life once," Gibbs said. "Tell me."

"It's a long story," Tony warned, still staring straight ahead.

Gibbs propped his feet up on the deck rail. "I got nowhere else to go."


	10. Chapter 9

"Every cop has that one case that they know they'll never forget," Tony began. "The one that sticks with them forever. For me, it was a case in Peoria. There was this couple in the foster parent program. They had a big house just outside downtown, and they took in a lot of kids. They were especially good about taking in the tough cases – the kids no one else could handle. DCF was always dropping kids over there. At one point, I think they had ten."

"Then one day, a neighbor or someone noticed that for a house with ten kids, there weren't a lot of toys or bikes or stuff around. And not a lot of noise. Certainly not what you'd expect from a big house with lots of kids. DCF did a cursory investigation and there were a lot of kids they couldn't locate. In fact, kids were disappearing from this house at a pretty good clip. It was like a roach motel – kids went in, but they never came out. There weren't enough DCF investigators to cover it, so the department got the gig. I ended up being the officer in charge."

"Because you get along so well with kids?" Gibbs said, with a chuckle.

"Yeah…" Tony said, with a small grin. "No … they had me head it up because at the initial interview, the wife thought I was cute, and they figured she might open up to me more than to some of the other guys. I am a charmer, you know." Tony smirked and looked at Gibbs, who rolled his eyes.

"So, I'm over at this house doing the fourth interview or something. I'm getting nowhere, and she's getting all flirty and suggestive, and then one of the dogs comes into the living room with a kid's arm in its mouth."

"Oh my God," Gibbs said.

"Yeah," replied Tony. "The woman tried to tell me it was from a doll, but it was pretty obvious. I called for back-up and had a team over there 30 minutes later. We dug up the whole back yard. Found pieces of fourteen kids. The parents would take in a kid, start collecting the support checks, and then kill the kid and bury him outside, while still collecting the checks. They'd been doing it for years. That day – the day I was there – one of the dogs got off its chain and dug one of them up."

"Tony," Gibbs said, with concern, "I didn't mean …"

"Nah, it's okay," Tony said, with a wave of his hand back at his boss.

"Anyway…," Tony continued. "I was a maniac with this case. Remember how you were with Ari? That was me with these guys. I didn't leave the office, didn't sleep, lived on Mountain Dew and donuts. I ran down every single piece of evidence. I wanted them. I wanted it so iron-clad that a bug couldn't sneak out."

Tony closed his eyes and leaned back into the chair, lost in thought.

"What happened?" Gibbs asked, softly.

Tony opened his eyes and cleared his throat. "There was a new assistant DA in town, and he was assigned to the case." Tony stood up and went to the rail, looking out into the darkness. "When we got to court to arraign these guys, we found out that the new DA had neglected to file a piece of paperwork – I never found out what it was, but it was procedural. And we'd pulled a judge who was a stickler for that kind of thing. Without the proper paperwork, he wouldn't hold them, so this woman and her husband walked out of the courthouse and disappeared. We never found them; they never stood trial for the murders."

Tony turned to face Gibbs, leaning back against the rail. "In the courtroom, I went ballistic. I screamed at the DA, pinned him against a wall and took a swing at him. Then I went for the judge. Couldn't get to him, though, so I picked up a chair and threw it through the courtroom window." He smiled a rueful smile. "It was very dramatic."

"I'm sorry I missed it," Gibbs said.

"It took four guys to restrain me," Tony continued. "By this time, my captain and a half-dozen guys from the force had made it into the room. They dragged me out and back to the station. I was suspended, of course, but they kept me out of jail." He shrugged. "I'm not sure why. I'd have tossed me behind bars."

"So," Tony said, sitting back down and looking at Gibbs, "there I was, standing in front of the police station at 3 o'clock in the afternoon with … nothing. They'd taken my car keys, badge, everything. And, predictably … perfectly … it started to pour."

Gibbs hid a yawn. Tony grinned a little. "I told you it was a long story," he said. Gibbs nodded for him to continue.

"Jess and I had this deal," Tony continued. "'Any time, anywhere.' If one of us needed the other one, it didn't matter where we were or what we were doing. No hour was too early or too late. So … I walked home, and I called Jess. She was working in some top-secret location at the time, and all I had was a pager number. I would call and leave a message, they'd relay it to her immediately, and then she'd call me back as soon as she could." He ran his hands through his hair. "I called and left a message: 'Help. Tony'. That was it; just 'help.' It took her 157 seconds to call me back. I sat and counted." He looked at Gibbs. "I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't process anything else. I left the message and then just stared at the second-hand on my watch and counted. When the phone rang, it scared the hell out of me, I was so focused on the watch."

Tony sighed. "By the time Jess reached me, I could barely speak in complete sentences. I was … I was in shock, I guess. She talked to me for I don't know how long – a half-hour maybe – until I was lucid enough to carry on a conversation. She told me later that I kept talking about 'fourteen kids' … kept repeating that, over and over. 'Fourteen kids' and how I couldn't catch them."

Tony rubbed his eyes and flexed his hands a bit, then continued. "Once she'd kind of figured out what was going on, she told me I had to wait for her to get there before I did anything else. She asked me if I had a gun. I told her they took it away when they suspended me. She told me to stay at home, and said that I could drink water, but nothing else. Made me promise. Twice. And she said she'd be there as soon as she could."

Gibbs' curiosity got the best of him. "Where was she?"

"Somewhere in Northern California. I was in Peoria. She made it from California to Peoria in under four hours."

"How?" Gibbs said. He was obviously impressed.

Tony smiled. "She had this friend who flew F-14s – Tomcats. She talked this pilot into filing a flight plan and taking her from Northern Cal to Illinois on a 'humanitarian mission'. They flew into the air base in Peoria, where she'd arranged for a police escort to pick her up and bring her to my place. Most of the guys on the force knew what had just happened, so getting police assistance wasn't a big problem. And she got the full treatment – closed streets and sirens blaring. People thought the president was in town."

"She's very resourceful, your friend Jess," Gibbs said.

Tony chuckled. "You have no idea."

He stretched a little and continued. "She walked into my place and there I was on the couch – tired, surly, filthy – I was covered in dirt from being unceremoniously tossed on my ass outside the courthouse and then slogging home in the rain. I hadn't eaten, hadn't slept, hadn't showered. Didn't care if I lived or died. If she hadn't called me back and given me strict instructions, I'd have emptied every liquor bottle in the house and probably done a swan dive off the roof. But she walked in, sat down on the coffee table in front of me and told me to talk. Which I did."

Tony stood up and walked back to the rail, leaning against it. "More accurately," he continued, "I yelled. I raged, I cried, I threw things, I broke things, I punched a hole in the wall. And she let me. She'd move things out of my way that would hurt me, and she had to duck a few times herself, but she basically just let me get it all out. I don't know what the neighbors thought. After about two hours of this, I fell against a wall and slid down to the floor. She spent the next 40 minutes or so coaxing me up and into the shower."

Gibbs raised his eyebrows.

"We'd been friends since childhood, Boss," Tony said with a small grin. "She'd seen me naked before." He sat back down. "She washed all the crap off me, put me in boxers and a t-shirt, gave me a sleeping pill or something, and put me to bed."

"I woke up ten hours later, in pretty much the same position I'd been in when I laid down, except that my hand – the one I put through the wall – was bandaged. I got up, walked out into the living room, and it was like it never happened. The place was spotless. Everything that I'd thrown or broken was either tossed, replaced, or repaired – including the wall. She'd gotten rid of the clothes I was wearing; I never saw them again. She'd cleaned my apartment, done my laundry, sorted the mail, stocked the fridge … I doubt that she slept. It was like I'd had a nightmare, and now it was over. I walked into the kitchen, and there was Jess, in a t-shirt and jeans, making pancakes."

Gibbs laughed and shook his head.

"We had breakfast and then we spent the rest of the day out."

"Where did you go?" Gibbs asked with a curious smile. He was kind of getting into the story now.

"The park," Tony replied. "And the zoo, and the children's museum. We went to places where Jess thought there would be parents and kids. She wanted me to remember that not all parents hate their children … that not all grown-ups kill kids and bury them in the back yard. She wanted me to see happy families."

He looked at Gibbs. "We grilled hot dogs at the park and made s'mores and then went home and fell asleep in front of the TV. The next morning, she went back to California and I went back to work."

"That's an incredible story, Tony," Gibbs said, sincerely. "I had no idea."

"I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't shown up that day," Tony said, thoughtfully. "And then three years later I found out – totally by accident – that her little jaunt to Peoria to talk me off a ledge had gotten the Tomcat pilot a reprimand and cost Jess her job."

Gibbs and Tony sat in silence for a moment, and then Gibbs stood and stretched.

"Sun'll be coming up soon," he said. "You got an extra razor I can use?"

Tony stood and stretched as well. "In the bathroom. Second drawer." As Gibbs headed up the hallway to the bathroom, Tony turned to go into the kitchen. "I'll make some coffee."


	11. Chapter 10

It was just before 10am at the NCIS offices. The team had been there since dawn, going back through every bit of information they had to try and find a lead. There just wasn't anything to go on. No one had gotten much sleep, and the food they'd brought in for breakfast had gone uneaten. Tony was pacing, everyone was tense.

A few minutes passed and then Tony's computer beeped. "Here he is," Tony said.

"Bring it up on the plasma," Gibbs ordered.

E-mail text appeared, larger than life, as Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, McGee and Abby gathered around to see what Trey had in store for them.

A smiley-face icon appeared – the same smiley-face with a halo that had preceded Trey's last message. "Hello Tony," the e-mail read. "I thought maybe this time, you'd like to watch." The halo on the smiley-face turned into devil horns, and the smiley face changed into an evil wink. The icon faded into a video screen. The picture that popped up was an odd angle on a large room – a room that was bare except for what looked like a computer station, a large rug, and a couch. A lone figure came into view, moving to the webcam and focusing it better on the couch and rug area. There appeared to be no audio.

"Trey," Tony said, stating the obvious to no one in particular.

"McGee!" Gibbs ordered angrily. "Find this guy!"

"On it," McGee said, as he started running a trace from his computer.

Trey walked out of frame and came back with Jess, who was somewhat disheveled and had her wrists duct taped together. She was barefoot, wearing an ill-fitting black dress. She was fully conscious and seemed aware of her surroundings, but she was behaving in a completely docile manner. Trey had a hand around the back of her neck and was guiding her to the couch. He pushed her down and she sat, staring straight ahead and not moving. Trey released her wrists and ran his hands through her hair and down her neck, whispering to her as he did so.

"What the…?" Tony started to say. "What's she wearing? What the hell's going on?"

"He's trying to recreate the night of the crime," Ziva said, as she watched the image. "She's in a black dress, no shawl, no shoes, no stockings, no …" Gibbs turned to Ziva, who let the sentence end without finishing.

Trey looked up and smiled at the camera. Then, he sat down next to Jess, grabbed her face between his hands and roughly kissed her, first on the lips and then on the neck. He looked back at the camera and grinned, licking his lips. Tony was beginning to feel sick. Trey turned back to Jess and forcefully pushed her down on the couch. She fell where he pushed her, but didn't make any move to help align herself on the sofa or to try and get away. Trey was confused for a second, and then lifted her legs up and tossed them on the couch. He leaned over her and started to stroke her face and arms. She remained motionless. He became angry – presumably at her lack of activity – and swiftly backhanded her across the face. Her face whipped towards the back of the couch. Even without the audio, both Tony and Gibbs flinched with the motion. Jess remained still, but it was clear that it was taking a great deal of control for her to do so.

Trey began to yell. He was in profile to the camera, so it wasn't automatically clear what he was saying. He was clearly enraged.

"What's he saying?" Tony said, tensely. "What the hell is he saying to her?"

Abby watched the screen intently, trying to read Trey's lips. "He's saying … 'fight back, fight back, bitch!'" Abby said. Upon saying the last word, she looked at Tony. "Sorry …" she said in a whisper.

"He's trying to recreate the crime," Gibbs said. "But in the original attack, Jess fought back. You said the ER doctors had never seen anyone fight back like she had. If she doesn't fight back, it's not the same."

"He either won't – or, more likely, can't – rape her if she doesn't … participate," Ziva added.

Tony stared at the screen. "If you knew her better, you'd know how hard that is for her…" Tony said, almost in a whisper. "To just lie there."

"I've only known her for two days, and I know how hard it is for her to just lie there," Ziva said, her voice laced with a hint of admiration.

By this time, Trey was wandering in and out of frame, ranting and yelling at Jess. He grabbed her by the hair and shook her by the shoulders, trying for a reaction. She was obviously becoming more and more on edge – she was flexing her hands and taking deep, calming breaths when Trey couldn't see. But she held her ground and stayed limp and unresponsive. As Trey was walking behind the couch, he tripped, on the rug, maybe, or on one of the cords going to the computer station. This was apparently the last straw. He walked to the webcam and angrily yanked it out of the wall. The screen went dark in an instant.

Tony's knees buckled. Only Abby's quick thinking got a chair under him before he went down.

"Th – thanks, Abs," Tony said, shakily.

"Get Ducky," Gibbs said, quietly, to Abby. Then he put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "You okay, DiNozzo?"

Tony took a couple of breaths and tried to respond, but wasn't having much luck. By the time Abby arrived with Ducky, Tony was close to hyperventilating, still unable to speak. Ducky went to his side.

"There, there, my boy," Ducky said, quietly and calmly. The others looked on anxiously, except for McGee, who was still working on the trace. "Concentrate on your breathing, Tony," the doctor continued softly. "With me … in … out … slowly now … in … out." Tony's breathing slowly came back to normal.

"Sorry, Boss," Tony said, somewhat sheepishly. "I don't know what happened. Just the … the shock of seeing Jess like that, and then the picture going off all of a sudden … I …"

"It's okay, Tony," Gibbs said, cutting him off and putting his hand on Tony's back. "Just … get your bearings." Gibbs looked at the doctor. "Duck?" he said, his eyebrows going up and his eyes shifting to indicate Tony.

"A bit of shock, coupled with fatigue," Ducky said. "If I thought it would be heeded, I would prescribe a sedative and send him home to bed."

"NO," Tony said, forcefully. He stood a bit shakily, but quickly recovered. "No," he said, more evenly, looking at Gibbs.

"No," Ducky said, absently. "I thought not."

Just then, McGee's voice broke in and startled them all. "Got it!" he exclaimed.

Everyone gathered around McGee's computer to see three flashing rectangles, outlined in red.

"I can't seem to isolate it to one specific location – it's a really dirty signal, static everywhere," McGee said.

"McGee," Gibbs said. "Just … the location, please?"

"Yes, Boss," McGee said, focusing on the computer screen. "It's one of these three buildings by the Beltway. It's either this warehouse, the quarry office next door, or … looks like an old restaurant."

"The restaurant," said Tony. "She ended up at a diner. If he's playing out the original crime, he'll go for the restaurant."

"And he'll probably make her walk barefoot through the quarry to get there," Ziva said, with loathing.

"Good work, McGee," Gibbs said.

Just then, a red beacon began beeping in the lower right-hand corner of McGee's screen.

"What's that?" Ducky pointed.

"It's a tracking signal," Abby said. "He knows we've found him."

Gibbs looked at the screen. "Let's go," he said.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

Twenty minutes later, Gibbs and Tony were moving silently into the abandoned restaurant. McGee was covering the side entrance; Ziva was coming in the back.

As they came through the door, they could see Jess standing in the center of the space. She was alone and blindfolded, her hands duct-taped behind her. She was in the same black dress, and it was evident that what Ziva had predicted was true. She had walked, barefoot, to the building; she had scratches and bruises on her shins and knees, and her feet were covered with dirt and dried blood. There was also duct tape across Jess' mouth. She was having trouble breathing through just her nose; they could sense her growing panic. Trey was nowhere in sight.

"I have to get that tape off her mouth, Boss," Tony said quietly. "She can't breathe."

At the sound of his voice, Jess' face turned to where she imagined they were. She had visible bruises on her face, neck and arms, and a small trickle of blood was at the corner of her mouth, from the backhanded slap they had witnessed earlier. Tony breathed in sharply when he saw her face.

Gibbs looked around. There was still no sign of Trey. McGee and Ziva had made it to the main room of the building without having seen him.

"You pull the tape off, and then get down," Gibbs said softly. "We can't do more until we know where he is. We'll cover you." Gibbs exchanged glances with McGee and Ziva.

Tony moved swiftly to Jess. He pulled the blindfold down and gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "This is gonna hurt." He pulled the tape off her mouth quickly; she took in a gulp of air and said, "Above you!" just as the ceiling broke through and Trey slammed down on top of them. Tony tried to shield Jess as they collapsed under the weight of Trey and the ceiling. Tony was knocked unconscious, and Jess could feel pain in her shoulder as it made contact with a table on the way down. Trey kicked Tony's body behind him and towards the restaurant counter, where Tony's head impacted with one of the metal stools.

By the time the dust cleared, Trey had pulled Jess up with his arm around her neck, and he was holding a gun to her head. She was covered in sawdust and insulation, and had a shard of a plastic florescent light cover embedded in her thigh. It was bleeding steadily. Trey looked down at Tony, then at Ziva, McGee and, finally, Gibbs.

"I'll kill them both," he said, evenly and with no emotion.

"Well," Gibbs corrected, "you'll kill one of them. Look around – you'll never get a chance to take the second shot. Your only chance to live is to drop the gun."

"I live, I go back to jail," Trey said. "You know what they do to you in jail?" he asked, focusing on Gibbs and not noticing that Tony was slowly coming to behind him.

"They do to you what you did to her," Ziva snapped.

Trey turned to look at her and smiled a mock-apologetic smile. "Sorry about your head," Trey said, in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn't sorry at all. He looked back at Jess, who was losing strength fast. "You should have just kept your mouth shut." Then he looked Gibbs square in the eye. "And you," he said, moving his arm to point the gun at Tony, while never taking his eyes off Gibbs, "you can go to hell."

"You first," Tony said, as he hit the back of Trey's knees with a piece of lumber, throwing Trey off balance. McGee took him down with a single shot as Gibbs moved to catch Jess, who was crumpling to the floor. Ziva made her way towards Tony.

"'You first'," Tony berated himself. He was on his knees on the floor, looking at Gibbs and Jess and feeling dizzy, nauseous, and about to pass out. "I couldn't come up with anything more original than 'you first'." Then he slumped to the floor, unconscious. McGee felt for a pulse on Trey and confirmed he was dead. Ziva checked on Tony and called for an ambulance.

Gibbs pulled out his knife and easily released Jess' hands, then gently helped her lean against a booth. He took off the blindfold that had fallen around her neck and used it to put pressure on her leg wound. She gasped in pain when he pressed down to stem the flow of blood.

"He just quoted 'Lethal Weapon 3'," she said in a shallow whisper, looking down at Tony and then back up at Gibbs. "That's going to bug him for a year." With that, she passed out as well, leaving Gibbs, Ziva and McGee to secure the scene and wait for back-up.


	12. Chapter 11

When Tony woke up, he was lying on a gurney in the back of an ambulance. Someone was holding an ice pack to his head.

"Tony? Are you awake? Tony?"

Tony looked up and saw McGee looking down at him, with a worried expression on his face.

"Nice shooting, Probie," Tony said, with a grin. Then his expression turned frantic. "Where's Jess?" he demanded, sitting up way too fast for a guy with a concussion. His forward motion was stopped by McGee's hands on his shoulders.

"On her way to the hospital," McGee said, as he tried to get Tony to lie back down. "Gibbs put her in an ambulance."

"How is she?" Tony demanded, clearly not satisfied with McGee's summary. Gibbs' face came into view.

"She's doing okay," he said. "She had a pretty decent gash on her leg and maybe a dislocated shoulder, but she's okay. She was conscious when they left. Kept telling us not to make fun of you for quoting 'Lethal Weapon 3'." He grinned.

Tony groaned and fell back onto the gurney, covering his face with the pillow.

"McGee," Gibbs said, getting back to business, "you and Ziva start processing the scene and wait for Ducky to come and collect Trey's body. I'm going to ride back with Tony." McGee nodded and started to make his way out of the ambulance. "And call Abby," Gibbs added. "She'll be worried."

"On it, Boss," McGee said, as he pulled out his phone and went to join Ziva.

Gibbs sat next to Tony and handed him the icepack, which Tony put on his head, still hidden under the pillow. The medics closed the ambulance doors, and they all headed to the hospital.

**NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS**

It took 45 minutes for Tony to be examined and cleared to go home. He had some bruises, a minor concussion, and a twisted knee, but nothing major. Gibbs made multiple trips back and forth between Tony's treatment room and the nurse's station, trying to keep up with both Tony's injuries and Jess' condition. Finally, Tony was released – with a wrapped knee, a bottle of meds and orders not to drive – and both men headed to the waiting room.

A nurse approached. "Excuse me," she said, looking at Tony. "Mr. DiNozzo?"

"Yes?" Tony turned to her, expectantly.

"I need you to sign some papers, please."

Tony looked down at the clipboard she was holding. "What are these?" he asked.

"When we admitted Miss Kennedy," the nurse began, "we called her emergency contact numbers. One of them was for an attorney under the employ of Anthony DiNozzo Sr." She referred to the clipboard she was holding. "The attorney instructed that we should bill any of Miss Kennedy's charges, as well as any treatment you might need – and he seemed reasonably certain that you would require some sort of treatment – to Mr. DiNozzo's business manager. He said that you could sign any paperwork that was required."

Gibbs looked at Tony, unable, once again, to hide his surprise at the actions of Tony's father.

Tony gave an embarrassed laugh. "The old man is full of surprises," he said, and signed the documents. Once that was done, there was nothing left to do but wait.

Gibbs sat, silently, in the waiting room, holding a cup of what was supposed to be coffee, but what he suspected was simply brown water that the vending machine company dispensed to placate anxious next of kin. Tony was a bundle of nervous energy – standing, sitting, drumming on tables, pacing in front of the window.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs said, more sharply than he'd intended. "Sit down. You're making me crazy."

Tony stopped and looked apologetically at his boss. "Sorry, Boss," he said. "I can't help it." He dropped into a chair.

"I know," Gibbs said, gently. He looked at Tony and reminded himself that it wasn't that long ago that his senior field agent was unconscious.

"You okay?" Gibbs asked. "You need anything?"

"No, I'm good," Tony said. "I've got a headache, and I'll be sore in the morning, but I'm good."

"Where are your clothes?" Gibbs asked, just now noticing that Tony was wearing scrubs and a sweatshirt, not the clothes he had on when he was brought in.

Tony looked down at himself. "Oh," he said, clearly not realizing right away that something was different. "My stuff was covered in slivers and sawdust from the ceiling – it was itching like hell. I borrowed these from one of the doctors."

Gibbs acknowledged the explanation.

"Honestly, Boss," Tony continued, absently. "I don't know how you stand it, in that basement of yours." Gibbs smiled.

Another minute ticked by. The minute hand on the clock clicked.

"How'd you two meet?" Gibbs asked suddenly, hoping to distract them both for a moment.

"Me and Jess?" Tony said. "Her family moved in next to mine in Connecticut. I was nine years old." He smiled with the memory. "I was standing in the yard watching the movers unload the truck, and a car pulled up. I wasn't allowed outside the yard, and it was definitely not permitted to introduce oneself to strangers. But I was watching everything that came off that truck, hoping I'd see toys or bikes or anything that would indicate kids lived there."

A doctor walked up, and Tony stopped, waiting to see if it was news about Jess. The doctor kept walking.

"So, this car pulled up," Tony continued, "and this little girl got out. She walked up to me, stuck out her hand and said, 'hello, my name is Jessica Elizabeth Kennedy and I'm moving in next door.' I shook her hand and said, 'hello, my name is Anthony Michael DiNozzo, and I've lived here all my life.' She looked at me and said, 'we're going to be best friends forever', and we were, just like that."

Gibbs chuckled. "I can see her doing that." Tony smiled. "I'll bet you were both, as they say, a handful," Gibbs said.

"Oh yeah."

Another doctor walked up, and Gibbs recognized him as the one who had been going in and out of Jess' treatment room earlier. He stood up, and Tony followed his lead. The two of them were standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder as the doctor approached.

The doctor put his hands up in a calming gesture. "She's going to be fine," he began, even before he was all the way into the waiting room. "She's got a lot of bruises, and she lost a fair amount of blood, but nothing was in any way life-threatening. We had to put about a dozen stitches in her leg, but there shouldn't be any complications. She'll be here for two days, maybe. And between the injuries on her leg and her feet, it'll be a week or so before it doesn't hurt to walk. But she'll be fine."

"Did you see any …" Tony began. He stopped and tried again. "I mean, did you have any reason to believe …" Finally, he just said it. "Did you do a rape kit?"

The doctor smiled compassionately. "No," he said. "There wasn't any reason to. There were no injuries consistent with that type of trauma."

Tony released the breath he'd been holding. Gibbs put a hand on Tony's back to steady him.

Then, in response to what was obviously the next question, "We had to sedate her to clean out her leg and set her shoulder. She's not awake yet, but you can sit with her if you want," the doctor said. "I'll have a nurse take you upstairs."

"Thank you, doctor," Gibbs said.

The doctor turned to go and then turned back around to look at them both. "One more thing," he said. "We noticed that she has a lot of scars – is there anything else we should know about?"

"No," Tony said, with a light laugh. "We were just daredevils as kids." The doctor raised an eyebrow, and Tony quickly moved to reassure him. "Seriously," Tony said. "I have just as many, and in a lot of the same places. I know how she got every single one of them." His mind flashed back to a couple of days before. "Except for one … there's one I don't know," he said. "But the rest of them are totally innocent. I promise."

The doctor regarded Tony's earnest expression and considered the explanation before deciding it was a truthful one. "OK," he said. "I just had to ask."

He motioned to a nurse, who came to escort Gibbs and Tony.

"I hope you're not keeping track," the doctor said. Tony and Gibbs looked at him, quizzically. "Of who's got more scars," the doctor explained. He looked at Tony and continued, "Because she's going to have a doozy once that leg heals."

Gibbs could have sworn he heard Tony curse under his breath as they headed upstairs.


	13. Chapter 12

Gibbs and Tony walked into Jess' room. A nurse was writing notes in a chart as she finished setting the room.

"We just got her settled; she's sleeping comfortably," the nurse said with a smile. "She's going to be fine."

"Thank you," said Gibbs. As the nurse left, Gibbs pulled up a chair for Tony and then one for himself. They both looked at Jess, asleep with IVs coming out of her left arm and her leg and feet wrapped in bandages. The light of the hospital room made her bruises stand out even more against her slightly pale complexion, but her face was peaceful and serene. Tony reached over and adjusted her blanket, then brushed away a lock of hair from her forehead. He spent a few seconds just making sure she was actually breathing, and then he looked up at Gibbs with an expression of relief.

"Thanks, Boss," Tony said quietly. "For … all of this. I know it kind of came to us the wrong way, but … well … thanks."

"She's military, Tony," Gibbs said, matter-of-factly. "It was our jurisdiction." Tony gave him an odd look. "But even if she hadn't been," Gibbs continued, more gently, and with a smile, "Jess is your family. No way were you going to handle this alone. This case was ours the second Trey showed up on her porch in Alaska."

Tony smiled and nodded.

Having heard the soft voices, Jess stirred and started to wake. Tony got up and stood at the side of the bed.

"Hey," he said, quietly.

"Hi," she said, a bit groggy still. She moved a little to get more comfortable. "Ow," she said, as she moved her leg. "Bad idea."

She sat up a bit and looked around, trying to wake up. It took her a second to focus on the other person in the room. "Gibbs," she said. He smiled.

She looked back at Tony, seeing the bruises on his face. "Are you okay?" she asked, with concern.

"I'm good," he said. "Headache, bruises, wrenched my knee. Nothing to worry about." She raised her eyebrows and looked him full in the eye. "I promise," he said with a smile. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Trey?" she asked.

"He's dead," Gibbs said, as he stood and moved to the end of the bed. Her face took on an expression of relief and regret. No one quite knew what to say.

Tony's stomach rumbled loudly, breaking the moment. He smiled down at Jess with a shrug. "Sorry … haven't eaten in a while."

Gibbs mentally scolded himself for not thinking of this sooner. "No," he said. "You haven't. Not since last night. With all those meds you're on, you should go downstairs and get something in your stomach. I'll keep an eye on Jess."

Tony looked at Jess, who nodded. He glanced back at Gibbs. "Can I bring you anything?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. Tony smirked.

"Right," he said, with a touch of sarcasm. "Like I had to ask." He kissed Jess on the forehead, carefully. "I'll be right back."

Gibbs walked around to the other side of the bed. "You need anything?" he asked.

"Water?" she said, looking over at the bedside table. Gibbs picked up a glass and straw and helped her take a few sips.

"Thanks," Jess said, as she put her head back onto the pillow and closed her eyes.

"Tony told me about Peoria," Gibbs said, not even sure if she was still awake. "Last night. While we were … waiting."

"Hmmm…" Jess said, her eyes still closed. "That's a good one. I come off looking really good in that one."

"Something tells me that you come off looking really good in all of them," Gibbs said, with a small laugh.

Jess opened her eyes and looked up at him with an expression that he couldn't quite read. "No…" she said. "Not all of them."

There was a beat of silence.

"So …" Gibbs changed the subject. "You'll be going back to Alaska?"

"I guess," Jess said with a sigh. "The project is almost over, and they were pretty happy to get rid of me. I don't know that they'll be thrilled to have me back. Although I'm thinking I'll get some good sympathy points."

"Well, if you think you might want a change of scenery," Gibbs said, "I have some friends at the Pentagon ..."

She looked up at him with a flash of humor that he was surprisingly happy to see. "You have … FRIENDS?" she said, with a barely concealed laugh.

His hand was more than halfway to a headsmack before he realized what he was doing and stopped the motion by shoving his hand into his pocket. He looked down at her, straight-faced. "Yes," he said dryly. "Yes I do."

She chuckled. "You're going to get me a job at the Pentagon."

"No," he said. "I'm going to get you an interview at the Pentagon. You're on your own for the job."

She looked at him for a second. "Why?" she asked, with a touch of suspicion.

He shrugged. "I still owe you dinner," he said, simply.

The door to the room opened, and Tony walked in. He was finishing a banana, carrying a cup of coffee, and holding the ugliest stuffed animal any of them had ever seen.

"What is that?" Gibbs exclaimed, as he took his coffee and regarded what seemed to be a stuffed … cat.

"Oh my gosh!" Jess said with a laugh. "It looks just like Dino Kitty!"

"That's what I thought!" said Tony with a bright grin. They both cracked up laughing.

Gibbs put out his hand in a "stop" gesture, and smiled. "I don't even want to know," he said. Then he turned to leave.

"You two seem to be entertaining each other just fine – I'm gonna head back." He turned to Tony. "DiNozzo, you call when you need a ride home; one of us will pick you up." Tony nodded. Gibbs looked at Jess. "I'll talk to you later," he said.

"Okay," she answered, with a smile and a yawn. "I'll … try to be awake." He chuckled.

As Gibbs walked out the hospital room door, Tony tossed the banana peel in the trash and pulled the tag off the stuffed cat. He handed it to Jess. She looked at it and shook her head. "Who'd have thought there'd be another one?" she said.

Tony looked down at her. "Is everything okay?" Tony asked. She nodded. "You're okay … you're sure?" he asked again, tilting her face a bit towards him and looking straight into her eyes.

"I'm fine, Tony," Jess said, trying to reassure him. "He didn't …"

"I know," Tony cut her off.

"So …," she said, echoing his response from earlier. "I'm good. I promise."

Tony took her hand and kissed her palm, as he had a couple of days earlier at Gino's. "Go back to sleep," he said, softly.

"Yeah," she sighed. She held his gaze for a second and then looked over at the other pillow and back up at him, a tacit request in her eyes.

He looked around the room and stifled a yawn. Then he sighed, kicked off his shoes, and took off his sweatshirt, leaving him in scrubs.

"Okay," he said, with a tolerant smile. "But if I get in trouble with the nursing staff, this is all on you."

"Copy that," she said.

It took a few minutes to sort out pillows, covers, IV lines and bandaged body parts, but before long, Tony was stretched out on his back in Jess' hospital bed, his arm around her, and her head resting on his shoulder.

She yawned and closed her eyes. "Gibbs is going to get me an interview at the Pentagon," she said, sleepily.

"Really?" Tony said, with a widening grin.

The last thing that Gibbs heard as he stood and eavesdropped outside the slightly ajar door was Tony's sing-song voice, softly teasing. "Jessie's got a boyfriend, Jessie's got a boyfriend."

"Give it up Tony," Jess said, as she drifted off to sleep.

Gibbs smiled, took a sip of his coffee, and headed down the hall.


	14. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

After two days in the hospital and another week of recovery (mandated by Ducky and watched over by both Tony and Gibbs), Jess went to Alaska long enough to pass on her notes and files to her replacement and to clean out the house she'd been renting. Her bosses at the NOAA lab were sad to see her go. Well … not really, but they said so at the time. They WERE sorry that she'd gone through such a harrowing experience, and did apologize for the snow effigy of her that they'd put on the back deck. They really thought that it would melt before she got back, but unseasonably cold temperatures were not working in their favor. Jess complimented them on the likeness they'd managed to achieve using only snow and broken generator parts, and was pleased that her penchant for practical jokes had rubbed off just a little bit.

Tony requested his left-over week of Y Pestis sick leave to go with her and help, since he'd be on desk duty until his knee healed. Besides, he'd never been to Alaska, and he'd always had this childhood fantasy of living in an igloo and dogsledding among the glaciers. He discovered that Alaska was, however, much more accommodating from the great room of the King Eider Inn in Barrow ("The Premier Hotel North of the Arctic Circle") than it was from the back of a dogsled, but at least he could check "live in an igloo" off his list of "Things To Do Before I Die" with relative certainty that he wasn't missing anything.

Gibbs had allowed Tony's leave, partly because he figured Tony and Jess could use a little bit of quality time together that wasn't related to a crazed parolee stalker, but mostly because Tony was really difficult to manage when he was on desk duty, and Gibbs figured that "a vacation for DiNozzo will be a vacation for us all."

Jess returned to the DC area and stayed with Tony while she waited for the results of her interviews at the Pentagon and looked for a place to live.

Ducky and Jess did attend the opera at Kennedy Center at the end of the month, along with Ducky's mother. The opera was outstanding, by all accounts, even if Jess did have to spend a good hour afterwards explaining to Mrs. Mallard that she was not a "young chippy gold-digger" out to steal Ducky's fortune and murder them all in their beds.

Jess and Gibbs were finally able to schedule their long-overdue dinner together. Unfortunately, work had been incredibly busy for her that day, and there were many errands that were left undone as she tried to make it to dinner on time. Always the good friend, Tony offered to take Jess' stuff to their shared safe deposit box the next morning on the way to work, in order to save her a trip and give her enough time to get ready.

Of course, the next morning was also the day that three armed militants decided to take over the very bank in which their safe deposit box was housed, in a quest for money, hostages and press coverage.

But … that's another story.


End file.
